VI RGIL 


BY 

T.   R.    GLOVER 

HON.    LL.D.    queen's    UNIVKRSI  rV,    CANADA 

FELLOW   AND   LECTURER   OP    ST   JOHN's   COLLEGE,    CAMBRIDGE 

UNIVERSITY   LECTURFR   IN    ANCIENT    HISTORY 


SF.COND   EDITION 


MfeTHUEN    &    GO.    LTD. 

36    ESSEX    STREET    W.C. 

LONDON 


First  Published        .         .         October       igo4 
(Efttitled  "Studies  in  Virgil") 

Second  Edition         .         ,         November  I()I2 
{Mfthuen  &»  Co.  Ltd.) 


^h 


TO 

DR  JOHN  WATSON 

PROFESSOR  OF   PHILOSOPHY   IN   QUEEN'S  UNIVERSITY,  CANADA 

How  many  a  time,  dear  Watson,  the  snowy  road  we'd  pace, 
With  the  frozen  lake  behind  us,  and  the  North  wind  in  our  face ; 
But  the  sun  was  bright  above  us  in  the  blue  Canadian  sky, 
As  we  walked  and  talked  together  of  deep  matters,  you  and  I. 

It  was  snow  and  air  and  sunshine  ;  and  I  look  across  the  sea 
To  those  days  of  glorious  winter,  and  the  life  they  meant  to  me ; 
For  my  mind  and  soul  caught  something,  as  of  sun  and  snow  and  air. 
From  the  friend  who  walked  beside  me  in  those  winters  over  there. 


206^54 


PREFACE  TO  THE  FIRST  EDITION 

IT  is  generally  recognized  that  at  present  there  is  a 
movement  in  education  away  from  the  Classics.  The 
questions  are  being  raised  in  the  older  English  Univer- 
sities, whether  after  all  Greek  is  a  necessary  part  of  every 
branch  of  study,  and  whether  it  should  remain  a  compulsory 
subject  in  every  curriculum.  In  America  and  in  the  British 
Colonies  a  further  stage  has  been  reached.  Tradition  there 
has  less  power;  Greek  as  a  compulsory  subject  has  been 
quite  discarded,  and  Latin  itself  is  in  some  places  a  more 
or  less  optional  subject.  The  possibilities  of  danger  to 
education  generally  which  are  involved  in  this  attitude 
toward  classical  studies  need  no  remark.  Yet  there  is 
another  aspect  of  the  matter  which  deserves  considera- 
tion, and  here  1  may  be  allowed  to  speak  from  my  own 
experience. 

I  found  when  I  was  Professor  of  Latin  in  a  Canadian 
University  a  system  of  "  options "  in  vogue,  which  per- 
mitted a  man,  if  he  so  wished,  to  drop  the  Classics  alto- 
gether at  a  very  early  stage.  The  higher  study  of  Latin 
and  Greek  was,  of  course,  as  in  England,  a  matter  of  free 
choice  for  the  student  who  hoped  for  honours.  But  the 
second  of  the  two  pass  classes  in  Latin,  involving  acquaint- 
ance with  some  half-dozen  books,  a  little  unseen  translation, 
and  a  very  little  prose  composition,  could  be  avoided  if  a 
student  so  determined.  Latin,  in  other  words,  had  to 
compete  with  all  sorts  of  subjects,  and  to  stand  on  its 
own  merits.  A  curious  result  followed.  Not  at  all  un- 
frequently  a  student,  in  spite  of  woeful  preparation  and 
a  persistent  inability  to  translate  with  accuracy  or  to 
compose  without  elementary  blunders  in  syntax,  would 
nevertheless  realize  something  of  the  literary  value  of  the 
poet  or  historian  who  was  being  read  in  class,  and  would 


viii  VIRGIL 

persevere  with  an  almost  pathetic  enthusiasm  in  a  study 
in  which  he  could  hope  for  no  distinction,  but  which  he 
could  and  did  enjoy.  He  realized,  in  fact,  that  the  old 
Scottish  term  "  Humanity  "  meant  something. 

What  the  presence  of  such  men  and  women  in  a  class 
meant  to  a  teacher  1  need  not  say.  When  year  after  year 
a  succession  of  such  students  made  their  appearance,  one 
gained  faith  in  the  vitality  of  classical  literature  and  in  its 
power  to  maintain  itself.  Only  it  was  plain  that  classical 
study  had  to  be  primarily  the  study  of  literature  and  of 
life — syntax,  philology,  composition,  and  so  forth  must  be 
clearly  means  to  an  end,  and  of  that  end  the  class  had 
never  to  lose  sight.  What  the  students  may  have  gained 
from  these  courses  they  can  best  say  ;  that  the  experience 
was  of  immense  value  to  the  teacher  I  record  with  gratitude. 

It  is  easy  to  see  that  the  factors  which  have  produced 
the  present  position  of  classical  studies  in  Canada  are  at 
work  in  England,  and,  though  the  movement  will  be  slower, 
it  is  not  hard  to  predict  that,  unless  steps  are  taken  by 
those  who  believe  in  classical  literature,  the  same  results 
will  follow  here  as  in  Canada.  Opinions  will  differ  as  to 
what  are  the  right  steps  to  be  taken.  Personally  I  believe 
that  none  will  be  so  effectual  as  the  appeal  to  the  threatened 
literature.  This  will  mean  that  students  must  have  their 
attention  constantly  directed  to  the  human  value  of  what 
they  are  reading,  and  further  that  the  training  of  literary 
instinct  must  be  more  generally  recognized  as  a  main  part 
of  the  teacher's  work.  Very  often  the  teacher  supposes 
that  his  class  are  a  great  deal  nearer  to  him  in  taste  and 
feeling  for  literature  than  they  are;  things  are  so  obvious 
to  him  that  he  does  not  suppose  it  necessary  to  call 
attention  to  them,  and  as  a  result  they  are  missed  by  the 
class. 

In  this  book  I  have  tried  to  apply  to  Virgil  the  method 
I  suggest.  During  five  years  in  Canada  I  had  to  lecture 
winter  by  winter  on  some  three  books  of  the  Aeneidto  a  class 
of  from  forty  to  sixty  students,  and  the  following  chapters 
are  the  indirect  result.     They  have  been  written  since  my 


PREFACE  TO  THE  FIRST  EDITION    ix 

return  to  England.  Scholars  who  know  the  literature  of 
Virgil  will  recognize  how  much  I  owe  to  French  scholars 
and  critics — to  M.  Boissier,  Sainte-Beuve,  Patin,  Girard 
and  Martha,  in  particular.  "  The  Gauls,"  Sainte-Beuve 
says,  "  early  found  their  way  to  the  Capitol."  To  my  own 
countrymen  I  am  also  indebted,  to  Professor  Tyrrell  and 
Mr  Mackail  among  the  living,  to  Nettleship,  Sellar,  and 
Henry  among  the  dead,  and  last  but  not  least,  to  Virgil's 
great  editor,  Conington,  whose  work  remains  a  monument 
of  a  great  victory  won  long  since  for  the  cause  of  Liberalism 
in  education. 

When  his  work  is  at  last  done,  and  his  book  is  going 
out  into  the  world,  a  writer  may  be  forgiven  for  wonder- 
ing what  will  be  its  reception — particularly  when  he 
has  tried  once  more  to  draw  so  well-known  a  figure. 
"  This,"  the  reader  may  say,  "  is  not  my  idea  of  Virgil 
at  all."  No  doubt  he  is  right,  and  in  more  than  his  state- 
ment of  fact.  A  great  poet,  expressing  himself  in  great 
poetry,  is  not  easily  grasped  in  his  entirety.  For  the 
great  mind  has  the  abundant  suggestiveness  of  Nature  and 
her  work,  and  the  critic,  in  proportion  as  he  deepens  his 
knowledge,  has  an  increasing  consciousness  that  he  will  not 
soon  exhaust  the  meaning  and  suggestion  of  the  great 
personality  he  studies.  This  picture  of  Virgil  may  not  be 
the  reader's,  but  it  still  may  be  a  true  one,  and  it  has  at 
least  been  drawn  with  growing  affection  for  the  poet. 
Goethe  once  expressed  himself  with  some  freedom  upon 
Schlegel's  criticisms  of  Euripides — the  critic's  point  of  view 
was  wrong — "  If  a  modern  man  like  Schlegel  must  pick  out 
faults  in  so  great  an  ancient,  he  ought  only  to  do  it  upon 
his  knees."  Whatever  else  may  have  been  done  aright  or 
done  wrong  in  this  book,  Goethe's  word  has  not  been 
forgotten. 

T.  R.  G. 

September  1904 


PREFACE  TO  THE  SECOND  EDITION 

FOR  the  new  edition,  the  book  has  been  carefully 
revised — indeed,  twice,  with  a  long  interval  between 
the  revisions.  It  has  not  been  re-written.  Years 
bring  new  outlooks,  and  neither  a  book  nor  a  picture 
can  very  well  be  made  from  two  points  of  view.  A  man 
sees  a  thing,  and  expresses  it  as  best  he  can  there  and 
then  ;  and,  if  later  on  he  retouches  it,  memory  and  some- 
times timidity  confuse  the  impression. 

I  have  added  translations  of  (I  think)  all  the  passages 
of  Virgil  quoted — not  always  using  the  same  words,  I  find, 
where  the  same  passage  came  more  than  once.  Readers 
of  Virgil  will  guess  the  reason. 

I  should  like  to  thank  the  reviewers  in  The  Times  and 
The  Athencsufn  for  criticisms  which  I  have  found  of  value 
and  have  used.  Another  reviewer  elsewhere  thought  I 
might  have  added  a  chapter  on  Virgil  in  literature.  I  am 
glad  to  explain  why  I  did  not — by  referring  my  readers 
at  once  to  Domenico  Comparetti's  Virgil  in  the  Middle 
Ages,  in  Mr  E.  F.  M.  Benecke's  English  translation,  a 
delightful  and  most  learned  work  which  will  appeal  to 
every  student  of  Virgil.  Sir  Archibald  Geikie's  Love  of 
Nature  among  the  Romans,  a  book  full  of  Virgil,  did  not 
reach  me  till  this  volume  was  already  in  type. 

In  a  lecture  recently  published  Mr  J.  W.  Mackail  spoke 
with  emphasis  of  what  is  to  be  gained  from  learning  by 
heart  the  poetry  of  a  great  poet.  There  is  something  even 
in  copying  signal  passages  out  for  oneself.  Virgil,  as  Mr 
R.  A.  Neil  once  playfully  said  to  me,  is  not  the  author 
for  a  healthy  boy ; — "  perhaps  more  trivial  airs  may  please 
thee  better,"  as  Humphry  Moseley  wrote  when  he  published 


PREFACE  TO  THE  SECOND  EDITION    xi 

Milton's  poems  in  1645.  But  it  is  only  in  boyhood  that 
one  has  the  opportunity,  or  perhaps  the  faculty,  of  learning 
much  poetry  by  heart,  and  I  would  give  a  good  deal  now 
to  have  had  my  own  mind  charged  from  boyhood  with 
Virgil  and  Wordsworth. 


September  191 2 


Don  Quixote  took  it,  and  without  speaking  a  word  began  to  turn 
over  the  leaves.     After  a  little  while  he  returned  it,  saying : — 

"  In  the  little  which  I  have  seen  I  have  found  three  things  in  this 
author  worthy  of  reprehension.  The  first  is  some  words  which  I 
have  re.id  in  the  prolc^e ;  another,  that  the  language  is  Aragonese, 
for  now  and  then  he  writes  without  articles ;  and  the  third,  which 
must  stamp  him  for  an  ignoramus,  is  that  he  blunders  and  deviates 
from  the  truth  in  what  is  the  important  thing  in  the  histor.%  for 
here  he  says  that  the  wife  of  Sancho  Panza,  my  squire,  was  named 
Mari  Gutierrez,  and  she  is  not  so  named,  but  Theresa  Panza  ;  and 
he  who  errs  in  so  considerable  a  point  as  this,  there  is  much  fear 
that  he  will  err  in  all  the  rest  of  the  histor).'' 

At  this,  cried  Sancho  :— "  A  pretty  thing  of  a  historian  indeed  !" 
Dan  Quixote,  part  ii.  chapter  59 


TABLE  OF  DATES 

B.C. 

90    The  Social  War. 
88-82     The  Marian  regime. 
82-78     Rule  of  Sulla. 

70     Consulship   of   Pompey   and    Crassus.      IJirlh  of  Virgil.     Birth 
of  Gallus. 

65     Birth  of  Horace. 

63     Consulship   of  Cicero   and   conspiracy   of  Catiline.       Birth    of 
Augustus. 

59     Consulship  of  Caesar. 

53     Battle  of  Carrhae.     The  Parthians  captured  Roman  standards. 

48     Battle  of  Pharsalia. 
48-44     Rule  of  Caesar. 

44     Murder  of  Caesar. 

42     Battle  of  Philippi.     (Horace  fought  in  Republican  army.) 

41     Plantation  of  the  Veterans.     Episode  of  Virgil's  farm. 

39  ?  Virgil  introduced  Horace  to  Maecenas. 
38-1     E c/ogues  (MackaW). 

31     Battle  of  Actium. 

29  ?  Georgics  (Mackail). 

27     Octavian  took  the  title  Augustus.     Death  of  Gallus. 

25     Propertius,  Cynthia. 

23     Death  of  the  young  Marcellus.     Horace,  Odes  i.-iii.  published. 

20     The  Parthians  restored  the  standards  taken  at  Carrhae. 

19     Death  of  Virgil.     Death  of  TibuUus.     Horace,  £/>/j//fj  i. 
8    Death  of  Maecenas.     Death  of  Horace. 

A.D, 

14     Death  of  Augustus. 


CONTENTS 

PAGB 

Preface  to  the  First  Edition  .....        vii 
Preface  to  the  Second  Edition  •  .  .  .  x 

Table  of  Dates      .......       xiii 

Chapter  I.    The  Age  and  the  Man   .  .  .  .  i 

Introduction,  p.  i. 1.  Environment  of  poet ;  change  in  Greek  and 

Roman  thought,  p.  4. II.   Birth;  home;  education,   p.    11. 

III.    The    plantation  of   the    veterans,    p.    22. IV.    Poetry;    the 

court;   friends,  p.    26. V.  The  Georgics;  last  days,  p.  33. 

Chapter  II.     Literature  :—i.  Literary  Influences         .        41 

(Macrobius  and  literary  indebtedness,  p.  41. 1.   Relations  of  Virgil 
to  Homer,  p.  46. II.  To  the  Attic  drama;  Euripides,  p.   52. 

III.  To  Alexandria,  p.  55. IV.  To  Latin  poets  ;  Lucretius,  p.  58. 

Chapter  III.    Literature  :— 2.  Contemporaries     .  .       67 

Latin  poetp;  and  its  modes,  p.  67. 1.   Mythology  ;  Propertius  and 

Ovid,  p.   71. II.    Roman  antiquities,  p.  76. III.   History,   p. 

79. IV.   Panegyric;  the  Aeneid,  p.  81. 

Chapter  IV.    Literature  : — 3.  The  Myths  of  Aeneas      .        85 

I.  Aeneas  in  the  Iliad  ;  the  Troad  ;  Strabo,  p.  86. II.  The  Wan- 
derings of  Aeneas;  Aphrodite,  p.  92. HI.   Rome  and   Aeneas; 

Virgil's  use  of  the  story,  p.  100. 

-Chapter  V.    The  Land  and  the  Nation: — i.  Italy         .      105 

Novelty  of  appeal  to   a  nation  ;   the  unity   of  Italy,    p.    105. 1. 

Scenery  ;  travel ;  Italian  scenery  and  legends  ;   landscape  ;  birds,  p. 

108. II.    The   Italian   people,   p.    120. III.    The   Trojans  in 

Italy,  p.  123. 

^.Chapter  VI,    The  Land  and  the  Nation  :— 2.  Rome        .      126 

Virgil  and  the  meaning  of  Rome,  p.  126. 1.  The  city  ;  its  beauty  ; 

its  memories,  p.  128. II.  Roman  history  ;  religion  and  antiquities  : 

Roman  character,  p.    133. III.    The  Roman  Empire;  its  under- 
lying ideas,  and  its  achievement,  p.  141. 


XVI  >   I  [%Vi  1  1  . 


C'UArVKK    VU        IMK    I  AM'    AM>    lUK    N  \  VION         ,;     AVHU'SH'S         147 

K«v>n*it  iHvts  *«v<  t\\c  wxMship  v\t  the  VN«|>ci\vr,  jv   147.  —  A,    The 
wwrk  »t  l\(hv»s  !  Am(;«,*U\>' ^^M\^\w««t\^>\\  vvt  \l  ;  its  |;r»\Hluc«Cs«,  \v  ts^v 

11.   Vi«);»l  A\u\  A«^«>t«s!  t\ioiVvUUip  t»\\»l  syuviv«»tl\v  i  rtiluwirttl.m 

for  K««\»«u\«'s  ch;u*»tci  ixiul  pv»\»tiv>rtl  *k'l\icvr»H<>i\t  1  Vini»\  «\\vi  IVmo 
CTOcy.  (v  iji4.         III.   A«s«>t«s  in  the  .4*mi\i  \  A\\^\.\s\\\ii~  miwi  ,W»\e*»j 

rHAVVKK    \lll         iNVKKVKV  lAVlON    OK    l.HPK;— 1.    OU>0  .  .  l?^ 

1,   Ifjivw^iinv  ««vl  Uti'imv  lvrt>-ki;»o«i\>l ;   (io«t«\pnt  i>t'  \\4vmvvu.  jk   175. 

•. \\.    \'\\c  \\\\i  ot  thr  j^vxIn  »v>  thv' stiMv  ot  Pikl»>.  jv,    lya         III. 

rh«»*v-tri  ol  P>viv>.  p,   1$*,- — l\',    I'hr  c>vt;u\j;lc\u««»\t  with   .\cucv»s ;  _ 
Avwva's  iv*\t.  jv    uSo,— .V,    The  luplute  :  the  UwUhi^i;  ^vt  HrA>r\\: 
nxavlnesis   «iul   kU-Alh    >>f    D\>U>.    jv     10,!  \l     S>j;\\((\i-muf   ^'t    thr 

xtvviy,  jv  ^\J, 

CUAl'VKK    l\        ImKKVK*  IvnON    OK    I  UK;       J.    AKNKAS  J08 

C  J.  l'o\  v<»\  Av-»\<-:»-..  IV    ;»vS,  I     nitVtoulty  vvt  uiulei^tAUvlini:  oh.-ti 

*otn  ol  Ar\\r*>»lii<"  tvMt\  0\>m(vlo\>tv,  |v  i}\.x>,  U,   Aenfi«s  v\vm"rive\i 

ivi\  ihr  l\i\s*.>i  vM  A  Homejio  heio,  \\  J\  {,  lU,    Arutws  i»»\vl  the  ^ivnls  ; 

lV»titi,T  J  Vu*»ivlcnv"r  i  clVf\"t  of  Ae»\c«»*  expeiienor  im  his  ihAirti-ln, 

\v  aifv. IV.   fStt<*ji,  \\  3di.         V.   .\c>\c;»s  i».<i  rviixk'e;  the  Slaj; 

k\Uiv»j;,    (v   •86.—— VI.  v\<\»>ivi»uvM\   >v>th    the    //*^.fr    UU'^km,    jv 

CUAPTKK    \        iNTKRPRKVAnoN    OK    I  IKK;      J,    HAIMS  .         J;^^ 

Se»vi«>   .'«   »ivth    .<,H4>.i  A\\\\  »ts  elevvvent.*,  jv   d^\<i.         I,    Hinwlive 

ielvjii«M\  *v\vl  H>>me»  :  the  AV^rw  ;  Mesiovl,  }>.  a^^. U.   Klevisiuiau 

mysteiic*:  Uioiwsus /*^re«s  :  Orphi.Mw  rttui  IVthi*)^»T««»i>u\  1  n«tv>, 

jx  a4a. lU.   ItAlidu  ule<vs  i\t  the  other  wvwUI  ;  l.uct^tiu!*;  Oceio's 

JMt*m  «/S,i/4^i  t.'>n\heHN  vn  the  irA"^^».,v,  jv  a^a. IV.  The  sixth 

CMAKIKK    \l.       In  VKKKKKt  AVION    OK    I  IKK         4.    iMVMKl'S  37} 

\'\\<r  ^.\U  \\\  Vyw  (svtn,  p,  jyj. — —l.  OKI  iwA  wcvi  \Arixs\\\  I  KM\>e\  ; 
l^Wwpvi*.  jv  375. —  II.  t^itloiMtt  ot  p>vls  by  Xeu^^phaues ;  by 
Kmv\vivleA:    hy    TUto ;    iWhue   ol    Olympian   >;\\ls ;     .\|H>lK>nius   vxf 

KhvHle.i,  jv   aSvV Ul,    ltnh*n  (xttnthe\M\ ;  ontvcisn\  v^t  lt»li;u\  leU- 

j<»ivn  by  ToK  Uiuj — "  v»!«el«l  "  ;  by  l^iviv*  a\\\\  by  l.tioretius  "  i\»«i>ly»- 
iwj  "  ;  by  i>\vt*  - '"  l>e<»vuitul  "  ;  Stv>iv-  views,  p.  jSa  -  IV.  Niijjil 
ttwvl  the  h\hU  :  j>««the>sn»  in  t.W'jfi.v;  UvM\ve»io  ijvhIs  in  .</*».j^m' t 
lti*l\«n  t;vHls  :  intluenoe  ot  Kv<in«n  ohttiAotei  vu\  vvnv^pi>ou»  ot  jIvhU  ; 
indueuv^e  ot  TUto  j  .fi  .vvWir'i^  .4V»i»»v /,>7:  hipiiei  a\\<.\  Frtte  ;  Vii^jvl's 
lnkle\-is\vvn  ;  "  PeAi  City  «.U  /.eusi"  ;  "  lV*i  ».Ntv  ot  t.'evioiv»"  ;  Stowiwn 


itmmm 


'id  I    .  / 

•  Chapter  XII.     Intkrpkf.tation  of  Lifk:— 5.  Results        .      306 


M7 


I'ACR 


The  "ancient  t|uarrel  of  poetry  and  philosophy";  poetry  and  "the 

problems  of  the  universe,"  p.   306. 1.    Dis  aliler  visum:  death, 

obscurity,  and  exile;  quae  lucis  miserix  lam  dira  eupido?  p.  309. 

II.   Lucretius  on  deatli  ;  the  "  voice  of  Nature,"  according  to  Lucre- 
tius and  according  to  Virgil  ;  the  Stoics  and  bereavement  ;   l';urii)idcs* 

Andromache,  p.   315. III.    "The  prol)lem"  in  the  Georgia  and 

in  the  Aettcid;  labor  ittiprobus  and  tendimus  in  I.alium  ;  the  future? 

p.  319. IV.   The  individuiU's  case  ;  the  strenuous  mind  ;  effects  of 

sufifering  ;  cons<jlalions,  !>.  323. V.  Conclusion;  Virgil's  the  great 

voice    of    hope    and    gladness    iu    the    Roman    world  ;    Virgil    and 
Christianity,  |).  330. 

INDKX 335 


VIRGIL 


.^™^gM^BHi 


VIRGIL 


CHAPTER  I 
THE  AGE  AND  THE  MAN 

Oi5a/j.€u  yap  6ti  irdcra  i]  Kriait  avcrrevdi^ei  Kal  ffvvudlvei. — St  Paul. 

IT  is  a  commonplace  that  to  understand  a  poet  we  need 
some  knowledge  of  his  time  and  place.     His  mind  will 
take    colour    from    his    surroundings,   by  sympathy   or 
antipathy.     He  will  share  at  least  some  of  the  limitations  of 
his  age  and  generation,  while,  in  common  with  his  contem-, 
poraries,  he   belongs   to  a  stage  of  moral  and  intellectual 
development  in  advance  of  his  predecessors.     At  the  same 
time  it  must  be  remembered  that  a  great  poet  will  generally 
also  be  in  advance  of  his  contemporaries  in  the  fullness  with 
which  he  realizes  the  life  of  his  day,  with  its  problems  and 
its  solutions  of  those  problems;  and  he  will  represent  in 
some  measure,  whether  he  means  it  or  not,  the  standpoint 
of  a  later  age.^     He  will  have  grasped  all  that  his  own  age 
has  to  say,  and  he  will  feel  more  than  other  men  the  weak 
points  in  a  position  with  which  they  are  satisfied.     Even 
if  he  does  not  consciously  feel  these  weak  points,  they  will 
often  be  brought  out  by  his  work.     For  while  a  great  poet's 
work  will  rise  to  a  region  of  feeling  and  insight  where  he 
has  to  handle  things  of  eternal  and  universal  significance, 
and  where  we  forget  that  he  is  a  poet  of  a  certain  time  and 
place, — so  truly  does  he  present  to  us  the  permanent  and 
common  life  of  man, — yet  even  in  such  a  region  will  his  own 
age  claim  him,  as  he  develops  those  aspects  of  truth  which 
are  wanting  to  the  common  thought  of  his  day.     A  great 

*  "The  artist,"  said  Schiller,  "it  is  true,  is  the  son  of  his  time  ;  but  pity  for 
him,  if  he  is  its  pupil,  or  even  its  favourite." 

I  1 


2  VIRGIL 

poet  will,  of  course,  not  be  what  is  called  didactic,  whatever 
he  may  have  to  teach ; — indeed,  when  he  explains  in  prose 
what  he  means,  it  is  never  quite  the  same  thing.  None 
the  less  he  will  have  something  to  say  that  is  urgent 
and  significant,  and  this  will  have  been  suggested  to  him, 
somehow,  by  the  life  around  him — how  we  may  not  be  able 
to  see  very  readily,  for  the  processes  of  a  poet's  thought  are 
more  mysterious  than  those  of  other  men;  but,  somehow, 
he  will  not  be  satisfied,  his  work  will  not  please  him,  till 
all  is  adjusted  to  the  harmony  which  he  feels  must  be  the 
mark  of  the  right  view  of  the  universe. 

/     Virgil  is,  of  course,  the  great  poet  of  the  Augustan  age, 
/according    to   the   common    account.     M.    Patin,^    however, 
suggests  that  neither  Virgil's  nor   Horace's  is  the   typical 
poetry  of  the  time,  but  that  both  represent  a  recoil  from 
the  current   fashion.     Another   French   critic,   M.    Pierron,^ 
maintains  that  Virgil,  if  born   fifty  years  earlier   or   later, 
would  still  have  been  Virgil — a  less  perfect  Virgil,  but  yet 
Virgil — while  Horace  would  not  have  been  Horace  at  any 
other  time.     "  Horace,"  he  continues,  "  if  I  may  so  say,  is 
the  age  of  Augustus  personified."     Probably  the  poetry  of 
no  great  poet  is  ever,  in  the  sense  which  M.  Patin  means, 
"  typical  "  of  its  age,  for  the  poetry,  or  v/hat  passes  for  poetry, 
of  every  age  seems,  like  its  prose,  to  be  at  best  common- 
place, or  more  probably  bad.     Yet  Virgil  and  Horace  must 
after  all  be  genuine  representatives  of  their  era,  for  their 
contemporaries  read  and  treasured  their  poetry,  and  left  the 
works  of  the  rest  to  wrap  the  incense  and  the  pepper  of 
which  Horace  speaks.^     Is  the  poet,  who  touches  the  heart 
of  his  time   and  his  people,  or  the  average  poetaster,  the 
truer  type  of  the  age?     Setting  aside  the  poetasters,  who 
were  many,'*  setting  aside  even  names  of  greater  note,  such 
as  Tibullus  and  Ovid,  are  we  to  call  Horace  or  Virgil  the 

1  Patin,  Etudes  sur  la  Poc'sie  lalhte,  i.  c.  viii.  ;  cf.  Tyrrell,  Latiti  Poetry,  p.  23  f. 

*  La  Littt'ratitre  roiiiaiuc,  405-6.  Compare  the  remark  of  Goethe  cited  by 
Carlyle,  Essay  on  Diderot :  "  Thus,  as  the  most  original,  resolute  and  self-directing 
of  all  the  Moderns  has  written  :  '  Let  a  man  be  but  born  ten  years  sooner,  or 
ten  years  later,  his  whole  aspect  and  performance  shall  be  different.' " 

'  Cf.  Horace,  Efp.  ii.  i,  267  ;  Catullus,  95,  9  ;  and  Persius,  i,  43. 

*  Ovid,  ex  Poiito,  iv.  16,  enumerates  some  thirty  contemporary  poets. 


THE  AGE  AND  THE  MAN  3 

poet  of  the  period  ?  Is  Horace — Horace  the  prophet  of 
common  sense,  who  never  transcended  the  sterling,  but 
hardly  inspiring,  moralities  of  his  most  worthy  father — is 
Horace  really  after  all  the  interpreter  of  the  life  of  the 
Augustan  age?  Is  he  fundamentally  in  sympathy  enough 
with  all  men,  or  with  any  man,  to  tell  his  age  all  that  is 
in  its  heart — its  longing,  its  quest,  and  its  despair?  If 
Horace  is  not  the  poet  we  seek,  is  Virgil?  Allowing  at  once 
that  he  sees  beyond  the  men  of  his  time,  that  he  knows 
their  spirit  as  they  do  not  know  it  themselves,  and  that 
in  many  ways  he  is  spiritually  nearer  to  Marcus  Aurelius 
than  to  Augustus,  let  us  try  to  see  him  in  relation  to  his  age 
and  to  realize  how  he  expresses  the  deepest  mind  of  the 
Roman  world  around  him.^ 

The  "  age  of  Augustus "  is  a  phrase  with  which  we  are 
familiar,  and  it  has  a  certain  suggestion  of  splendour  and 
promise,  but  more  of  this  than  we  suppose  may  be  due  to 
Virgil  himself  It  is  he  who  has  taught  us  to  associate 
greatness  and  prosperity  with  the  name  of  Augustus,  but,  if  1 
we  substitute  for  "Augustus"  the  name  "  Octavian,"  some  of 
the  grandeur  and  most  of  the  hopefulness  is  lost.  We  find, 
in  fact,  that  while  Virgil  bade  his  countrymen  look  forward 
for  all  that  was  happy  to  the  age  opening  before  them,  he 
was  himself  the  child  of  another  and  a  darker  age,  and  that  1 
his  vision  of  a  brighter  day  was  at  least  as  much  prayer  as 
prophecy.  For  the  century  which  lay  behind  the  inception 
of  the  A  enez'd  knew  more  of  the  works  of  Octavian  than  of 
Augustus.  Augustus  had  indeed  ended  this  century,  and 
the  system  which  he  introduced  into  the  Roman  world 
was  to  save  the  world  from  its  repetition.  But  it  was  one 
thing  to  prevent  the  recurrence  of  such  a  period  of  pain 
and  of  rapid  decline,  and  quite  another  to  undo  the 
effects  which  survived  from  a  hundred  years  of  civil  war. 
Let  the  Emperor  have  credit  for  all  he  did,  but  let  us 
remember    that    if    Virgil    prophesied    peace    for   that  age 

1  "The  Historian  of  a  national  Poetry,"  says  Carlyle,  "has  to  record  the 
highest  Aim  of  a  nation  in  its  successive  directions  and  developments  ;  for 
by  this  the  Poetry  of  the  nation  modulates  itself;  this  ts  the  Poetry  of  the 
nation." — Essay  on  Historic  Survey  of  German  Poetry. 


4  VIRGIL 

of  Augustus,  at  the  dawn  of  which  he  died,  his  life  had 
been  lived  in  times  of  confusion,  of  war,  of  treachery,  and 
defeneration. 


The  Roman  people  had  lost  in  some  measure  its  early 
character.  If  war  sometimes  discovers  the  finer  qualities 
of  a  nation,  it  also  develops  the  worse  and  the  darker. 
The  long  struggle  with  Hannibal  displays  in  the  most 
splendid  way  the  stability  and  the  manhood  of  Rome  at  her 
best,^  but  it  profoundly  affected  the  history  of  the  Roman 
spirit.  With  it  began  the  decline  of  Italian  agriculture 
[and  the  rise  of  the  professional  army,  both  attended  with  in- 
evitable mischief  It  was  followed  by  the  rapid  extension 
of  Roman  power  over  the  Mediterranean  and  the  accentua- 
tion of  the  pride  of  the  sword.  Conquest  brought  wealth 
and  the  pride  of  wealth.  Rich  and  conquering,  Rome  came 
into  contact  with  the  older  and  decaying  civilizations  of 
Greece  and  Asia,  with  peoples  far  advanced  in  moral  and 
intellectual  decadence.  The  old  ideals  of  the  Roman  farmer- 
state  were  already  shaken  before  the  conquest  of  the  East 
flooded  Rome  with  the  ideas  and  the  luxury  of  Greece  and 
of  Asia.  The  old  dignity  gave  place  to  the  vulgarity  of  mind 
which  sudden  wealth  produces  when  it  is  not  accompanied 
by  reflection.  The  Roman  had  never  before  conceived  of  the 
possibilities  which  life  offered  of  enjoyment,  and  when  they 
came  he  did  not  know  how  to  use  them,  and  plunged 
from  one  excess  of  self-gratification  to  another.  This  new 
appetite  for  unreserved  indulgence  was  neither  checked  nor 
compensated  by  the  simultaneous  rise  of  Greek  influence 
,  over  Rome.  It  was  a  degenerate  Greece  that  took  her 
captor  captive,  and  the  arts  she  brought  into  rustic  Latium 
were  not  as  a  rule  those  of  Aeschylus  and  Phidias,  nor  were 
Plato  and  Aristotle  the  philosophers  who  made  the  first 
impression  on  Roman  thought.     A   Polybius  might  meet  a 

*  Two  lines  from  a  great  passage  of  Claudian  may  bo  quoted  here  : 
Nunquam  sttcciibuit  dainuis  et  territa  nullo 
vulnere  post  Canrias  maior  Trebiamqtie  fremcbat. — Cons.  StiL  iii.  144. 


THE  AGE  AND  THE  MAN  5 

Scipio  on  equal  terms, ^  each  to  be  the  larger  and  broader- 
minded  man  for  intercourse  with  the  other,  but  too  often 
the  Greek  teacher  had  neither  ideas  nor  ideals.  He  retailed 
the  dogmata  of  a  doubtful  philosophy,  and  led  his  pupil  in 
the  paths  of  a  scarcely  doubtful  morality.  The  more  gifted 
he  was,  the  more  dangerous  a  guide  was  he  for  one  as  much 
his  inferior  in  intelligence  as  his  superior  in  wealth. ^  The 
degeneration  in  Roman  character,  with  the  loss  of  the  sense 
of  responsibility  and  of  the  idea  of  self-restraint,  becomes 
more  and  more  marked  with  time.  Whether  the  senate 
or  the  people  at  Rome  had  by  the  time  of  Tiberius  Gracchus 
fallen  furthest  from  the  worth  and  dignity  of  the  senate 
and  people  of  an  earlier  time  it  would  be  hard  to  say. 
Oligarchy  and  opposition  alike  used  the  constitution  accord- 
ing to  the  lettei  regardless  of  the  spirit,  and  not  un- 
naturally came  to  disregard  the  letter  itself.  Open  murder 
in  the  street,  secret  murder  in  the  home,  judicial  murder  in 
the  court  of  law  led  up  to  avowed  civil  war,  and  the  cynical 
practice,  introduced  by  Sulla,  of  posting  lists  of  victims  who 
might  be  killed  with  impunity.  Side  by  side  with  this  went 
on  the  careless  spoliation  of  the  provinces,  destined  to  produce 
evils  from  which  the  empire  was  never  to  recover.  Rome  had, 
moreover,  quarrelled  with  Italy,  and  the  Social  war,  fought 
out  some  twenty  years  before  Virgil's  birth,  gained  indeed 
the  Roman  citizenship  for  the  Italians,  but  left  them  with 
a  temper  scarcely  more  friendly  to  senatorial  government 
than  before  the  war.  The  ultimate  position  of  Transpadane 
Gaul,  where  the  poet  was  born,  was  still  doubtful. 

Rome  was  after  all  repeating  the  experience  of  the 
Greek  world,  and  with  a  somewhat  similar  result.  Political 
life,  with  the  opportunities  it  gave  ror  the  development  of 
the  political  character  and  the  political  virtues,  was  gone, 
but  room  was  left  for  the  growth  of  other  virtues  less  akin 
in  the  first  instance  to  Greek  or  to  Roman  nature.  Poetry 
and  philosophy  indicate  the  change  coming  over  the  world. 

^  Polybius  himself  tells  the  story  of  their  friendship,  and  it  well  deserves 
reading.     Polyb.  xxxii.  9,  10. 

*  The  career  and  the  writings  of  Philo(^emus  of  Gadara  are  sufficient 
illustration. 


6  VIRGIL 

The  Tragedy  of  Euripides,  the  New  Comedy  of  Menander, 
j  the  idylls  of  Theocritus,  the  mimes  of  Herondas,  and  even 
the  learned  and  didactic  poetry  of  Aratus,  show  a  shifting 
of  the  interest  of  mankind  from  the  state  to  the  individual,  |  f, 
from  high  life  to  low  life,  from  the  city  to  the  field.  They 
show  a  certain  contemplation  of  the  virtues  and  feelings 
of  people  once  overlooked,  of  humble  people,  shepherds, 
artisans,  and  slaves,  which  must  be  studied  in  conjunction 
with  the  new  teaching  of  the  philosophers.  For  the 
philosophers  had  left  caring  for  the  state,  and  were  chiefly 
concerned  in  making  life  tolerable  for  individuals,  who 
were  now  subjects  rather  than  citizens.  What  was  the 
temper  best  fitted  for  the  subject  of  a  great  despot,  of  an 
Antiochus  or  a  Philip?  How  should  he  face  a  world  vaster 
than  geographer  had  guessed,  vaster  in  its  awful  unity  than 
politician  had  ever  dreamed,  a  world  on  which  he  could 
exercise  no  influence?  How  could  he,  for  whom  life  had 
meant  political  activity,  resign  himself  to  sit  with  his 
hands  tied  ?  What  virtues  were  needed  for  this  new  world 
to  make  human  life  still  possible  ?  A  closer  study  of  human 
nature  was  necessary  for  poet  and  philosopher  alike,  and 
this  closer  study  brought  to  light  many  things  which 
changed  the  whole  aspect  of  life.  The  outlook  was  over  a 
larger  world,  and  its  first  great  result  was  the  discovery 
of  the  common  humanity  of  man.  Homo  sum  ;  humani  nihil 
a  me  alienum  piito^  whether  Terence  said  this  spontaneously 
or  took  it  from  Menander,  is  a  sentiment  which  is  alien  to 
the  spirit  of  earlier  Greece,  and  how  much  more  to  that 
of  earlier  Rome  !  The  Aeneas  of  the  Aeneid  is  unintelligible 
till  we  realize  that  between  him  and  Homer's  Achilles 
stands  this  new  principle.  And  not  only  Aeneas,  but,  as 
we  shall  see  later  on,  the  gods  of  Olympus  themselves  have 
learnt  the  lesson. ^ 

There  is  another  result  of  the  decline  of  state-life,  which 
is  not  quite  so  conspicuous,  but  must  not  be  overlooked. 
Philosophy,  though  not  perhaps  so  early  as  it  began  to 
devote  itself  to  the  individual,  turned  an  occasional  glance 

^  "  I  am  a  man  ;  nothing  human  do  I  count  aUen  to  me." 

^  See  generally  Bernard  Bosanquet,  History  of  Aesthetic,  ch.  v. 


THE  AGE  AND  THE  MAN  7 

to  the  great  movements  of  the  empires  which  rose  from 
the  ruins  of  Alexander's,  The  spectacle  of  mankind  made 
one  politically  had  been  seen  for  a  moment  and  lost  again, 
but  it  had  left  an  indelible  impression  on  the  minds  of  men. 
The  incessant  struggles  of  the  successors  of  Alexander  seem 
hard  enough  to  link  with  any  common  idea,  yet  perhaps  the 
idea  is  there,  latent  indeed  and  always  further  and  further, 
it  might  seem,  from  realization,  yet  never  forgotten.  The 
world  had  been  one.  And  when  Polybius  looked  out  upon 
the  course  of  history  he  found  the  great  idea  again. ^  Other 
people  might  suppose  if  they  liked,  as  long  after  him  St 
Cyprian  did,"  that  the  kingdoms  of  this  world  rise  and  fall 
aimlessly  by  pure  chance,  but  Polybius  saw  that  it  was 
otherwise.  All  things  pointed  one  way,  to  the  universal 
dominance  of  Rome,  and  when  he  looked  at  Rome  he  helcJii<-=- 
that  she  was  worthy.  A  deep-lying  design,  or  at  least  some 
element  of  rationality,  made  all  history  intelligible  and 
made  it  one,  whose  ever  was  the  brain  that  conceived  it. 
The  philosophy  of  history  had  begun  to  be.^  Probably 
Virgil  never  read  Polybius,  but  that  is  immaterial,  for  great 
ideas  are  independent  of  books,  and  fructify  in  ways  past 
tracing.  At  all  events,  we  may  say  that  the  Aeneid  pre- 
supposes this  discovery  of  the  common  destiny  of  man  as 
well  as  that  of  his  common  nature.  A  certain  philosophy 
of  history  gives  its  unity  to  the  poem,  and  marks  it  out  from 
all  poetry  yet  written. 

"  From  every  moral  death,"  says  Carlyle,  "  there  is  a  new 
birth ;  in  this  wondrous  course  of  his,  man  may  indeed 
linger,  but  cannot  retrograde  or  stand  still."     We  see  then 

^  Polybius  opens  his  history  by  reference  to  the  subjugation  of  almost  the 
whole  world  by  the  single  city  of  Rome  in  about  fifty  years,  and  asks  what 
can  be  more  valuable  than  to  understand  so  unprecedented  an  event.  At 
the  beginning  of  the  sixth  book  he  returns  to  this  problem,  and  endeavours 
to  solve  it  in  a  discussion  of  the  Roman  character  and  constitution. 

^  Cyprian,  quod  idola  del  non  sunt,  c.  v.  Cyprian  is  one  of  the  less  reflective  of 
the  fathers.     For  a  nobler  view,  cf.  p.  145. 

*  Diodorus  Siculus,  i.  I,  on  universal  history  :  ivavras  dvdpdiirovs,  nerexovras 
fijkv  T-qi  irpos  dX\7j\ovs  cvyyepeias,  tottois  8^  Kal  xpovoLs  diecrrriKOTas,  €<l>i\oTifirjdri(Tav 
viro  filav  KoX  tt]v  avrriv  avvra^iu  dyayeiv,  uairep  tlv^s  vwovpyol  rrjs  deias  Trpovoias 
y€V7)devTes  .   .   .   rds  KOivds  ttjs  oUovfxevqs  wpd^eis,  Kaddirep  fitds  Tro'Xews,  dvaypd- 


8  VIRGIL 

that  amid  the  wreckage  of  old  states  and  old  systems  man's 
unconquerable  mind  has  risen,  independent  of  state  and 
system  alike,  to  the  possession  of  new  truth.  Yet  it  must 
be  admitted  that  there  is  a  difference  between  earlier  and 
later  philosophy,  which  is  ominous  for  the  time.  The  new 
lessons  have  not  been  learned  in  quite  the  old  way.  There 
is  a  growing  suspicion  of  the  mind  and  its  powers,  a  mistrust 
of  the  intellect,  which  issues  in  the  denial  of  the  power 
of  the  mind  to  reach  reality,  in  the  rise  of  a  sceptical 
tendency  and  of  another,  and  a  related,  tendency  to  seek 
truth  rather  by  intuition  than  by  reflection.  Magna  ilia 
ingenia  cessere^  if  we  may  turn  the  phrase  of  Tacitus  from 
history  to  philosophy,  and  men,  mistrusting  themselves  and 
their  contemporaries,  are  more  content  to  accept  and 
transmit  dogmata,  inherited  from  the  great  teachers  of  the 
past,  than  to  ask  questions  and  find  answers  for  themselves. 
But  when  men  forsake  inquiry  for  opinion,  when  they  once 
begin  to  deal  in  dogmata,  in  spite  of  the  limitations  of  the 
dogjuatic  temper,  the  desire  for  intellectual  safety  prompts 
them  to  accept  as  many  dogmata  as  possible,  and  eclecticism 
is  born,  and  the  same  mind  holds,  or  thinks  it  holds,  the 
tenets  of  very  different  schools  woven  together  in  some 
strange  reconciliation.^  There  is  a  growing  desire  to  gather 
up  the  fragments  that  nothing  may  be  lost,  but  with  every 
gathering  the  fragments  grow  more  fragmentary.  Yet  this 
breaking  up  of  the  results  of  thought  is  not  all  loss,  for 
one  might  almost  say  that  it  is  only  so  that  they  become 
available  for  mankind  at  large.  Philosophy,  if  its  gaze  is 
not  so  clear,  nor  its  note  so  certain,  has  at  least  a  larger 
audience  than  before,  and  if,  like  the  successors  of  Alexander, 
the  successors  of  Plato  and  Aristotle  are  less  and  less  great, 
nevertheless  the  general  thinking  of  mankind  is  on  a  higher 
plane  and  on  better  lines  than  of  old.  Once  more,  we  find 
this  in  the  Aeneid.  Aeneas  has  voyaged  all  round  Greece, 
and  he  reaches  Latium  a  philosopher. 
[Summing  up,  then,  we  may  say  that  the  poet  of  the  first 

^  "  The  great  intellects  have  ceased  to  be." 

*  "  All  eclectics,"  says  Novalis,  "arc  essentially  and  at  bottom  sceptics  ;  the 
more  comprehensive,  the  more  sceptical." 


THE  AGE  AND  THE  MAN  9 

century  B.C.  will  have  around  him  a  society,  more  used  to   • 
speculate,  if  not  to  speculate  deeply,  more  open  to  receive  ' 
truths  of  universal  scope,  more  responsive   to    the  gentler/ 
and  tenderer  emotions,  in  a  word,  more  humane,  than  in  any 
previous  age.^    While   we  have  to  remember  that  Virgil's 
earlier  manhood    fell    in   a   period  of  war   and    bloodshed, 
when  all  the  worst  passions  of  human   nature  were  given 
their  fullest  freedom,   we  must    reflect   that   it   was   yet   a 
period  when  the  pain  of  suffering  and  seeing  others  suffer 
would  be  most  keenly  felt. 

Still,  though  we  speak  of  the  decline  of  state-life  ^  and 
its  effects  upon  Greek  thought,  and  recognize  a  similar 
process  at  work  in  the  Roman  world,  we  must  not  fail  to^ 
notice  that  in  Virgil's  day  the  national  life  of  Rome  had  not 
yet  lost  its  zest  and  meaning.  Doubtless  there  was  already 
in  many  a  mind  that  feeling  of  despair  which  everywhere 
comes  from  a  sense  of  the  hopelessness  of  personal  activity 
on  behalf  of  the  state,  and  which,  in  the  case  of  Rome,  led 
later  on  to  that  general  "  indifference  to  the  state,  as  if  it 
did  not  belong  to  them,"  which  Tacitus  remarked  as  one  of 
the  leading  characteristics  of  Romans  under  the  Empire.^ 
But  still  the  sense  of  responsibility  for  the  government 
and  well-being  of  their  country  was  a  dominant  feeling  and 
motive  in  the  minds  of  citizens.  It  was  impossible  to  fore- 
see the  extinction  of  the  republic.  Even  later  on  the 
elaborate  pretence  of  "  restoring  the  republic,"  which  cloaked 
every  fresh  step  taken  by  Augustus  for  the  security  and 
permanence  of  his  system,  is  clear  testimony  to  the  vitality 
of  republican  and  patriotic  sentiment.  Nor  did  this  die  till 
it  became  clear  to  every  one  that  the  empire  belonged  to 
no  one  but  the  Emperor,  and  that  energy  or  enterprise  on 
its  behalf  was  a  liberty  which  he  might  punish  with  death.* 

^  Cf.  Lecky,  European  Morals,  i.  p.  227,  on  the  influence  exerted  by  Greece 
for  gentleness  and  humanity. 

^  "The  state,"  says  Dr  Edward  Caird,  "ceased  to  be  an  ethical  organization 
of  life,  and  became  only  the  maintainer  of  outward  order."  Gretk  Philosophy,  ii. 
pp.  40,  49,  154. 

'  Tacitus,  Hist.  i.  i.  The  "indifference"  became  far  greater  in  the  centuries 
that  followed.  Encouraged  by  the  government,  it  was  one  of  the  strong  factors 
in  the  fall  of  the  ancient  world. 

*  The  story  of  Synesius  and  the  barbarian  invaders  of  the  Cyrenaica  may 


lo  VIRGIL 

In  picturing  to  ourselves  the  Roman  state  which  Virgil 
knew,  we  see  it  as  a  rule  with  the  eyes  of  Cicero  or  Cato  of 
Utica.  To  them,  we  know,  it  was  painful  to  think  of  their 
country's  present  position.  But  we  should  remember  that, 
while  they  were  conscious  of  the  decay  of  old  ideals  of 
citizenship,  the  Italians  as  a  rule  had  only  recently  become 
citizens.  To  them  the  joys  of  citizenship  and  responsibility 
were  new  and  real.  Rome  meant  more  to  them  than  she 
had  ever  meant  before.  For  centuries  they  had  been 
subjects  of  Rome,  now  they  were  Romans  ;  they  themselves 
were  part  of  that  great  national  life — they  were  Rome. 
When  we  turn  to  Virgil's  own  district  of  Italy,  we  find 
further  that  this  position,  so  recently  achieved  by  the  other 
/^Italians,  was  still,  during  the  earlier  part  of  his  life,  a  hope 
and  a  dream.  Thus,  side  by  side  with  the  matured  and 
even  ageing  philosophy  of  Greece,  we  find  Virgil  under  the 
influence  of  a  young  and  buoyant  sense  of  national  life. 

For  us  who  live  under  the  British  constitution,  with  its 
perplexing,  if  highly  curious  and  interesting,  medley  of  tradi- 
tions and  ideas,  feudal,  monarchical,  aristocratic,  romantic, 
and  democratic,  it  is  difficult  to  understand  without  explana- 
tion what  may  or  may  not  be  meant  by  loyalty  to  the  state. 
To  what  are  we  loyal,  and  what  do  we  mean  by  the  state — 
which  of  all  the  elements  blended  in  the  constitution — the 
person  of  the  monarch  or  the  ideas  of  the  race  ?  To  us  this 
last  is  scarcely  intelligible,  but  there  are  nations  who  have 
no  difficulty  about  it.^  For  them,  quite  apart  from  sentiment 
and  the  claims  of  common  blood  and  of  a  common  land, 
certain  ideas  are  associated  with  the  thought  of  the  people. 
This,  or  something  like  it,  was  true  of  the  Romans.  Greek 
and  Jew  were  more  conscious  of  race  than  of  state  :  ^  the  one 
had  too  strong  a  sense  of  the  individual,  while  the  other 

illustrate  this  (about  404  A.D. ).  Cf.  Syncsius,  Epist.  107.  It  is  a  pity  that  these 
delightful  letters  are  not  better  known  to  classical  students. 

^  Since  this  was  first  written,  the  swing  of  the  pendulum  is  more  clear,  and 
perhaps  for  the  moment  we  are  raore  conscious  of  race  than  the  facts  of  ethnology 
warrant.  It  is  not  so  evident  that  we  feel  so  strongly  the  highest  ideas  with 
which  the  history  of  our  own  people  has  been  associated. 

*  I  have  to  thank  a  friendly  reviewer  for  the  reminder  that  Athenian  democracy  is 
an  exception  here — that  state  in  which  iroXiTTjs  and  TroXtre/a  come  nearer  together 
than  anywhere  else  in  antiquity  or  than  in  most  lands  of  a  more  modern  time. 


THE  AGE  AND  THE  MAN  ii 

tended  to  subordinate  his  state  to  his  rehgion.  With  the 
Roman  race  and  state  were  one ;  he  had  certain  clear 
conceptions  as  to  its  claims  upon  himself,  his  own  part  and 
responsibility  in  working  out  its  history,  and  his  own  place 
and  lot  in  the  outcome  of  such  work  no  less.  The  charter 
of  the  American  colony,  which  proclaimed  that  he  who 
planted  a  tree  should  eat  the  fruits  thereof,  is  an  old  Roman 
notion  that  underlay  the  steady  Roman  antipathy  to  kings, 
that  inspired  the  Plebeians  in  their  struggle  against  the 
Patricians,  that  was  the  very  essence  of  the  Twelve  Tables 
and  the  law  which  grew  from  them.  The  Roman  knew  what 
his  state  meant  for  himself  and  for  every  other  Roman. 
He  had  no  speculative  habit,  but  the  root  of  the  matter 
was  in  him.  Consequently  he  was  full  of  the  sense  of  the 
state.  It  was  the  embodiment  of  the  ideas  of  the  race, 
their  expression  of  themselves. 

But,  unhappily,  other  ideals  of  life  had  made  their 
appearance,  and  with  them  had  come  disorder,  self-seeking, 
and  the  betrayal  of  the  state.  The  sixty  years  of  faction,  of 
wrong  done  recklessly  or  in  cold  blood  to  the  idea  of  the 
community,  shocked  every  man  who  thought.  Most  of  all 
must  they  have  been  shocked  who  had  newly  come  into 
the  enjoyment  of  what  they  saw  being  sacrificed  to  private 
fancy  and  fury.  Hence  it  is  that  Virgil's  love  of  his  country,  /-- 
one  of  the  great  notes  of  all  his  poetry,  gives  such  an 
impression  of  depth  and  emotion ;  it  is  conscious  love ;  it  is 
sympathy  and  anxiety. 

II 

Virgil  was  born  at  Andes  near  Mantua  on  October  15,^ 
in  the  year  70  B.C.  The  year  is  significant  as  that  of  the 
consulship  of  Pompey  and  Crassus,  when  Sulla's  constitution 
was  finally  undone,  and  free  scope  was  given  to  the  powers 
which  worked  for  the  destruction  of  the  old  republican 
system.     It  is  significant  too  that  he  was  born  in  a  country 

1  Suetonius,  vita  Vergilii  (ed.  Nettleship),  2  Natus  est  C>i.  Pompeio  Magna  M. 
Licinio  Crasso  privium  coss  idumii  Octobrium  die  in  pago  qui  Andes  dicitur  et 
cJ)est  a  Mantua  non  proatl  \  Martial,         (i%  Octobres  Maro  cravit  Idus. 


12  VIRGIL 

district,  that  he  grew  up  there  amid  country  people  and 
country  occupations,  "  a  Venetian,  born  of  rustic  parents,  and 
brought  up  in  the  midst  of  bush  and  forest."  ^  We  shall  see 
how  some  minds  in  Rome  found  him  a  villager  to  the  end. 
We  shall  find  for  ourselves  other  and  more  delightful  traces 
of  his  early  years. 

To  begin  with  the  village  and  countryside,  Sainte-Beuve 
remarks  the  influence  upon  character  exerted  by  the  small- 
ness  of  a  peasant's  holding  ^ — everything  means  so  much 
more  than  on  a  large  estate  ;  the  beasts  are  more  closely 
watched,  the  crop  is  more  a  matter  of  daily  thought,  hopes 
and  fears  gather  with  quicker  alternation  and  keener  edge 
about  everything ;  the  growing  boy  is  in  closer  and  more 
/personal  contact  with  every  part  of  the  farm  labour.  On  a 
farm  too  the  close  relation  of  work  and  result  is  perhaps 
clearer  than  in  many  industries.  All  this  would  contribute 
to  the  Eclogues  and  the  Georgics  in  later  years.  Perhaps 
Horace  would  have  been  less  in  love  with  moderation  if  he 
had  not  come  from  a  small  home.  Boissier,  again,  calls 
attention  to  the  tendency  of  village  life  to  be  conservative, 
especially  in  religion.^ 

Prudentius  has  a  beautiful  and  sympathetic  picture  of  the 
influence  on  a  child's  mind  of  the  very  kind  of  training  which 
Virgil  must  have  had.  "  His  first  food  was  the  sacred  meal, 
his  earliest  sight  the  sacred  candles  and  the  family  gods 
growing  black  with  holy  oil.  He  saw  his  mother  pale  at  her 
prayers  before  the  sacred  stone,  and  he  too  would  be  lifted 
by  his  nurse  to  kiss  it  in  his  turn."*  Certainly  the  past,  and 
above  all  the  old  religion  of  Italy  exercised  a  strange  charm 
on  Virgil,  which  survived  all  his  studies  in  Alexandrian 
literature  and  Epicurean  philosophy — 

fortunatus  et  ille  deos  qui  novit  agrestes.^ 

It   is  suggested  by  Sainte-Beuve  *  that  the  demi-tristesse 

1  Macrobius,  6a/.  v.  2.  i  Vtueto  rusticis  parent ibus  inteisilvas  etfrutices  edncto. 

*  Sainte-Beuve,  iltude  sur  Virgile,  pp.  35-7. 
'  Boissier,  La  J\elij^.  Roviainc,  i.  222-3. 

*  Prudentius,  contra  Syininachnm,  i.   197-214.     I  have  abridged  the  passage. 
Cf.  Apuleius,  de  Magia,  56. 

*  "  Idlest  is  he  also,  who  has  for  his  friends  the  gods  of  the  countryside.'' 
'  Sainte-Beuve,  itude  sur  Virgile,  p.  42. 


THE  AGE  AND  THE  MAN  13 

of  the  Po-country  had  some  share  in  developing  Virgil's 
melancholy.  But,  in  the  first  place  it  would  seem  that  the 
character  of  the  country  has  been  greatly  changed  by  the 
clearing  of  the  forests,  as  has  very  often  happened  in  Canada 
and  America  during  the  nineteenth  century ;  and  in  the 
second  place  such  an  influence  as  that  supposed  by  Sainte- 
Beuve  is  not  one  on  which  we  could  very  certainly  reckon. 
Probably  Virgil's  melancholy  had  its  roots  elsewhere.  Yet 
it  is  clear  that  that  love  of  the  country,  which  is  the  charming  - 
feature  of  TibuUus'  poetry,  is  a  vital  and  fundamental  element 
of  Virgil's  character. 

We  are  left  to  conjecture  the  origin  of  Virgil's  family. 
There  are  those  who  maintain  that  it  must  have  had  a 
Celtic  strain.  They  rely  on  the  etymology  of  the  poet's 
name  and  other  names  connected  with  him,  and  on  certain 
elements  of  his  genius  which  are  supposed  to  be  eminently 
Celtic.  The  first  line  of  argument  is  somewhat  conjectural, 
and  it  is  also  used  to  support  a  conflicting  view;  the 
second  is  so  closely  connected  with  the  larger  theory 
that  all  genius  is  probably  of  Celtic  origin  that  we  may 
leave  it  to  people  of  Celtic  blood  to  enjoy  to  the  full.^ 
Wilamowitz-Moellendorff  believes  Virgil's  origin  was 
Umbrian.2  Cisalpine  Gaul,  as  we  call  it,  was  perhaps 
once  inhabited  by  Italians ;  it  was  certainly,  when  first 
we  hear  of  it.  one  of  the  main  dwelling-places  of  the 
Etruscans  before  their  expulsion  by  the  Gauls.^  Mantua, 
in  particular,  remained  Etruscan  down  into  Imperial  times. 
A  little  town,  it  stood  impregnable  on  its  island  in  the  wide 
and  stagnant  lagoons  of  Mincius,  and  the  great  movements 
passed  it  by  and  left  it  Etruscan  still.  Virgil  himself  pauses 
for  a  moment  in  the  course  of  the  Aeneid  to  speak  (not  too 
clearly)  of  his  town's  early  days  :  "  Mantua,  rich  in  ancestry, 
yet  not  all  of  one  blood,  a  threefold  race,  and  under  each 

^  Yet  the  longer  one  associates  with  pure  Saxons,  the  more  tender  one  grows 
even  to  so  impossible  a  theory. 

2  Wilamowitz-Moellendorff,  Redcn  u.  Vortrdt^^e^,  p.  265  (An  den  Quellen  des 
Clitumnus).  He  says  Maro  is  an  Umbrian  name  for  a  village  official.  He 
rejects  the  view  of  Marx  that  Virgil  is  a  Celt.  "  CatuU,"  he  says,  "  ist  Franzose, 
Vergil  Italiener." 

^  Polybius,  ii.  17. 


14  VIRGIL 

race  four  cantons  ;  herself,  she  is  the  cantons'  head,  and  her 
strength  is  of  Tuscan  blood."  ^ 

When  we  turn  from  questions  of  ethnology  to  the  poet's 
family  history,  we  find  an  interesting,  though  short,  account 
of  his  origin  and  upbringing.  His  father  perhaps  began 
life  at  Cremona  ;  at  all  events  he  lived  there,  and  perhaps 
he  married  there.  Some  said  he  was  a  potter ;  others,  the 
hired  servant  of  a  petty  official  {viator')  called  Magius.  A 
man  of  character  and  energy,  he  meant  to  get  on  in  life 
and  he  succeeded.  His  industry  won  him  his  employer's 
daughter,  by  whom  he  had  three  sons.  Of  these,  one.  Silo, 
died  in  youth,  another,  Flaccus,  in  early  manhood.  Their 
father  was  not  content  with  one  occupation,  but  by  keeping 
bees  and  by  speculation  in  timber  he  made  some  money.^ 
It  is  strange  to  think  that  Virgil  owed  his  education  to 
the  turning  of  forest  into  lumber.  It  is  clear  that  the  father 
saw  quality  in  his  son  and,  with  characteristic  energy,  deter- 
mined to  develop  it  to  the  utmost.  Altogether,  he  made, 
as  we  shall  see,  a  strong  impression  upon  his  son.  One 
would  like  to  know  more  of  him.^ 

Meantime,  it  is  a  pleasant  reflection  that  in  the  fourth 
Georgic  Virgil  is  going  back  to  boyhood,  when  he  writes 
with  so  much  humour  and  affection  of  the  bees.  Nor  was 
his  father's  other  business  outside  his  interests.  Mr  Menzies 
in  his  Forest  Trees  and  Woodland  Scenery^  cited  and  praised 
by  Professor  Sellar,*  testifies  to  the  general  accuracy  of 
Virgil's  observation  of  woodcraft,  maintaining  that  he  must 
have  watched  keenly  the  details  of  the  work  which  tlie 
foresters  did  around  him,  and  adding  that  the  art  is  indeed 
little  advanced  since  the  days  of  Virgil. 

Yet  there  was  one  aspect  of  the  lumberman's  work  in  the 
forest,    which    may   not   greatly   have    moved    himself,    but 

1  Aeneidx.  198-203;  Pliny,  N.  H.  iii.  19  (23)  Mantua  Tuscorum  trans  Padtim 
sola  reliqua.  Its  importance  as  a  fortress  is  medieval  and  modern — familiar  to 
the  student  of  nineteenth-century  Italy. 

*  Suetonius  Vit.  Verg.  i,  egregieqtie  stcbstantiae  si  his  coemendis  et  apibjis 
curandis  auxisse  reculam.  It  should  be  remembered  that,  in  the  absence  of 
sugar,  honey  was  an  article  of  more  importance  than  i:  is  to-day  ;  e.g.  Epictetus, 
fr.  II. 

^  All  this  is  from  Suetonius,  v.   Vergilii,  i.  2.  14. 

*  Virgil  (2nd  edition),  p.  265. 


THE  AGE  AND  THE  MAN  15 

which  appealed  to  his  poet  son.  The  forest  had  to  come 
down  ;  the  land  on  which  it  stood  had  been  idle  for  years, 
and  man  required  it.^  But  while  the  axes  swung  and  the 
trees  fell,  the  young-  poet,  watching,  saw  the  havoc  made 
of  the  birds'  immemorial  homes  ;  he  saw  the  scattered  nests, 
he  saw  the  frightened  birds  hovering  in  the  air  over  the 
spot  where  they  were  to  build  no  more ;  and  though  he 
hailed  the  cultivated  field  that  was  to  be,  he  never  forgot 
the  sorrow  of  the  birds.  The  ploughman  of  Mossgiel  farm 
ploughed  up  the  daisy  and  destroyed  the  nest  of  the  field- 
mouse,  but  he  felt  what  he  was  doing,  and  made  mouse 
and  daisy  immortal.  In  later  days  Virgil  lingered  in  his 
story  of  the  reclaiming  of  the  land  to  pity  the  ruin  of  its 
most  ancient  inhabitants.     He  too  is 

Truly  sorry  man's  dominion 

Has  broken  Nature's  social  union. 

It  is  quite  clear  that  Virgil  was  a  "  lover  of  trees."  ^ 

Rura  mihi  et  rigui  placeant  in  vallibus  amnes 
flumina  amem  silvasque  inglorius  ^  {G.  ii.  485). 

The  wood  with  its  crowded  life  and  strange  solitude 
appealed  to  him,  as  we  can  see  again  and  again  in  his 
poetry.  To  take  a  striking  instance,  he  sends  his  hero  to 
find  his  way  to  the  other  world  by  another  route  from  that 
of  Odysseus.  The  Greek  hero  sailed  there  over  the  sea  ; 
the  Trojan  passed  there  through  woods  * — 

tenent  media  omnia  silvae  {A.  vi.  131) — 

^  Georgics  ii.  208  Et  nemora  evertit  multos  ignava  per  annos,  \  antiqttasque 
dornos  avium  c%im  stirpibus  imis  \  eiwi ;  illae  altinn  nidis petiere  reliciis.  Horace 
also  speaks  of  the  reclaiming  of  forest  lands,  incuUae  pacantur  vomere  silvae 
Epp.  i.  2.  45.  Cf.  Cowper,  Poplar  Field,  "The  blackbird  has  fled  to  another 
retreat." 

^  Compare  his  glowing  account  of  the  use  and  beauty  of  the  trees  of  the 
forest  in  G.  ii.  426-57,  and  the  conclusion,  0  forhniatos  7iimiu»i  agricolas  I  On 
the  forests  of  Italy  see  Deecke,  Italy,  ch.  xi.  §  2,  and  the  many  immigrant  trees 
from  America,  Africa,  and  Australia,  ch.  viii. 

*  *'  Let  me  delight  in  the  country  and  the  streams  that  freshen  the  valleys 

let  me  love  river  and  woodland  with  an  unambitious  love."  (Cunington.)  The 
whole  passage  deserves  quotation. 

*  Strabo,  v.  244,  it  is  true,  tells  us  that  the  region  was  surrounded  by  woods 
but  the  fact  is  one  thing  and  the  poetic  use  of  it  another. 


i6  VIRGIL 

and  whether  the  wonderful  line  that  describes  the  strange 
journey  in  the  darkness, 

ibant  obscuri  sola  sub  nocte  per  umbram 

refer  to  this  or  a  slightly  later  stage  of  his  journey,  Virgil 
couples  it  with  the  magnificent  simile  of  the  path  through 
the  forest  by  night — 

Quale  per  incertam  lunam  sub  luce  maligna 
est  iter  in  silvis,  ubi  caelum  condidit  umbra 
luppiter,  et  rebus  nox  abstulit  atra  colorem.^ 

With  this  love  of  trees  we  must  link  the  poet's  love  of 
water — of  river,  stream  and  lake — no  doubt  likewise  a  love 
that  went  back  to  the  island  home  of  his  boyhood. ^  Take 
his  picture  of  the  waters  of  Italy — 

Fluminaque  antiquos  subterlabentia  muros. 

An  mare,  quod  supra,  memorem,  quodque  adluit  infra  ? 

anne  lacus  tantos  ?  te,  Lari  maxume,  teque, 

fluctibus  et  fremitu  adsurgens  Benace  marino  ^  {G.  ii.  157). 

^  Aeneid  vi.  270-3.  See  Henry's  comment,  ad  loc,  in  his  Aeneidea.  He 
says  (p.  281):  "The  picture,  as  charming  as  the  most  charming  of  our  author's 
always — when  once  rightly  understood — charming  pictures,  cannot  fail  to 
recommend  itself  to  every  reader  who,  when  travelling  on  a  clear  and  fine  dark 
night,  has  watched  the  spreading  of  the  moonlight  over  the  sky  (luce  maligna) 
when,  owing  to  the  horizon  being  hid  from  him  either  by  woods  or  high  grounds, 
he  was  still  doubtful  whether  the  moon  was  actually  above  the  horizon  or  not ; " 
p.  285  :  "  Incertam  and  maligna  are  the  very  words  of  all  others  we  would 
expect  Virgil  to  have  chosen  to  describe  moonlight  in  a  w^ood — incertam  ex- 
pressing its  uncertain,  flickering  appearance  as  seen  through  the  branches  of  the 
trees  .   .  .  and  maligna  expressing  its  scantiness." 

*  The  name  Minciades,  applied  to  Virgil  by  Juvencus,  Minciadae  dulcedo 
Maronis,  has  more  truth  and  feeling  about  it  than  the  corresponding  MeXT/o-tyej'T/s 
(of  Homer),  or  "  the  bard  of  Avon." 

^  "The  rivers  that  flow  below  ancient  walls.  Or  shall  I  speak  of  the  two  seas 
that  wash  it  above  and  below  ? — or  of  those  mighty  lakes — of  thee,  Larius  the 
mighty,  and  thee,  Benacus,  rising  with  the  wares  and  roar  of  the  sea  ?  "  The 
reader  will  remember  Tennyson's  possession  by  these  lines  amid  the  scenery 
Virgil  describes — 

We  past 

From  Come  when  the  light  was  gray. 

And  in  my  head,  for  half  the  day. 
The  rich  Virgilian  rustic  measure 

Of  Lari  Maxume,  all  the  way, 

Like  ballad-burthen  music,  kept. 


THE  AGE  AND  THE  MAN  17 

Or  take  the  picture  of  the  autumn  rain-storm — 

Ruit  arduus  aether 
et  pluvia  ingenti  sata  laeta  boumque  labores 
diluit ;  implentur  fossae  et  cava  flumina  crescunt 
cum  sonitu,  fervetque  fretis  spirantibus  aequor  ^  {G.  i.  324). 

We  have  one  glimpse  of  Virgil's  boyhood,  which  also 
serves  to  show  us  something  of  the  country  and  its  state, 
^n  epitaph  is  extant,  which  he  is  said  to  have  written  on 
1  famous  local  brigand,  an  ex-gladiator,  Ballista  by  name. 
[t  is  a  simple  couplet,  but  it  has  a  certain  vivacity  of 
expression,  and  it  is  perhaps  not  going  too  far  to  say  that 
t  shows  the  child  as  father  of  the  man.  From  boyhood 
V^'irgil  would  seem  to  be  on  the  side  of  order,  on  the  side  of 
ndustry  and  quietness.  Perhaps,  too,  his  grandfather  was 
>till  a  viator. 

Monte  sub  hoc  lapidum  tegitur  Ballista  sepultus; 
nocte,  die,  tutum  carpe,  viator,  iter.^ 

Another  piece  of  verse,  attributed  to  Virgil,  which  may 
Delong  to  this  part  of  his  life,  is  a  parody  of  Catullus' 
'yJtaselus  ilk.  It  is  turned  to  account  for  a  mule-driver. 
[t  is  a  curious  coincidence,  if  the  poem  is  Virgil's,  that  both 
le  and  Milton  should  have  begun  by  attempting  humour 
ipon  carriers.^  He  is  also  said  to  have  written,  at  the  age 
)f  sixteen,  a  poem  called  the  Culex.'^     This  is  well  attested  ; 

For  Benacus  (Garda)  compare  Catullus  31  {O  venusta  Sirmio.).  It  may 
)erhaps  be  permissible  to  say  that  the  line  describing  Benacus  always  brings 
Dntario  before  my  mind,  as  I  have  seen  it  under  a  south-west  gale.  In  many 
vays  I  think  the  scenery  of  the  New  World  is  nearer  that  of  Virgil's  Italy  than 
nostofwhat  wesee  in  Europe  to-day,  though  I  am  afraid  theold  towns  are  wanting. 

^"Down  crashes  the  whole  dome  of  the  firmament,  washing  away  before  the 
nighty  rain-deluge  all  those  smiling  crops,  all  for  which  the  ox  toiled  so  hard, 
rhe  dykes  are  filled,  the  deep  streams  swell'with  a  roar,  and  the  sea  glows  again 
hrough  every  panting  inlet "  (Conington).  Deecke,  Italy,  p.  80,  says  Italy 
jelongs  to  the  region  of  winter  and  autumn  rains. 

^  Suet.  V.  Verg.  17.  "  Under  this  mount  of  stones  Ballista  lies,  buried  and 
lid  ;  night  and  day,  take  thy  way  in  safety,  O  traveller." 

'  The  piece  is  Catalepton  10  (8).  Catullus'  poem  must  be  dated  shortly  after 
lis  return  from  Bithynia  in  56  B.C. 

*  "  The  traveller,"  says  Baedeker,  "  is  not  recommended  to  spend  the  night  at 
Mantua  in  summer,  as  the  mosquitoes  here  are  exceedingly  troublesome." 


i8  VIRGIL 

and  it  was  believed  in  early  times  that  the  poem  was 
that  still  extant  under  the  name.  Professor  Nettleship 
held  dubiously  that  this  might  be  true.^  If  Virgil  wrote 
it,  we  can  only  say  that  his  later  work  is  singularly 
unlike  it  in  rhythm  and  style  and  treatment  generally, 
but  I  believe  the  majority  of  critics  are  right  in  rejecting 
the  piece. 

Virgil's  early  years  were  spent  at  Cremona,  according  to 
Suetonius,  and  the  eighth  of  the  Cataleptofi.  From  there 
his  father  sent  him  to  study  at  Milan,  and  afterwards  at 
Rome.  I  do  not  know  whether  there  was  much  continuity 
in  the  story  of  a  school  in  the  Roman  empire,  but  it  is 
interesting  to  notice  that  a  century  and  a  half  after 
Virgil  the  Milan  school  is  the  subject  of  a  letter  written 
to  Tacitus  by  Pliny.  Two  and  a  half  centuries  later 
still  St  Augustine  was  engaged  as  a  teacher  of  rhetoric 
in  Milan. 2 

Two  at  least  of  Virgil's  teachers  we  know  by  name. 
Parthenius  taught  him  Greek,  and  Siro  initiated  him  into 
philosophy.  The  traces  of  their  teaching  abode  with  him 
through  life,  but  it  is  of  more  interest  to  study  his  eman- 
cipation from  them,  for  it  is  characteristic.  He  was  naturally 
influenced  by  them  at  first,  but  he  was  still  open  to  other 
influences  which  corrected,  and  in  time  greatly  modified,  the 
impression  they  made  on  him.  It  is  the  lot  of  most  teachers 
to  be  outgrown  by  their  best  pupils. 

Parthenius  is  known  to  us  by  one  surviving  work,  a  hand- 
book of  love-tales  (^aOpoicri?  tcov  epwTiKcov  TruOtj/uLUTooi/),  told  in 
brief  (otoi^e)  vTroiJ.vr]ixaTL(iov  Tpoirov),  and  dedicated  to  Virgil's 
friend  Cornelius  Gallus,  in  the  hope  that  he  may  find  some 
useful  material  among  them  for  elegy  writing.  If  we  may 
believe  the  statement  attributed  to  a  scholiast,  the  Moretum 
is  a  translation  by  Virgil  from  the  original  Greek  of  Par- 
thenius. Two  questions  are  involved  here ;  but  whether 
the  extant  Moretum  is  Virgil's  or  not,  it  is  a  delightful  little 
poem,  and  one  would  be   glad  to  think  that  Virgil  had  a 

1  Ancient  Lives  of  Virgil,  p.  38.  See  Mr  Mackail's  most  interesting  lecture  in 
his  Lectures  on  Poetry  (191 1). 

^  Pliny,  Epp.  iv.  13  ;  Augustine,  Conf.  v.  13,  23. 


THE  AGE  AND  THE  MAN  19 

eacher  who  could  write  anything  so  good.^  The  liandbook 
s  an  infinitely  duller  work. 

It  is  quite  possible  to  suppose  with  M,  Pierron,  that 
/irgil,  when  he  wrote  the  Eclogues,  was  "  more  familiar  with 
he  poets  of  the  Greek  decadence  than  with  those  of  la  belle 
mtiquite^''  and  that  this  was  due  to  Parthenius,  who  would 
)robably  lead  his  pupils  where  he  most  enjoyed  going — to 
\lexandria,  in  fact.  The  time  came  when  Virgil  sought 
>ut  other  and  greater  Greek  poets  for  himself  Yet  he  paid 
'arthenius  the  same  compliment  as  he  did  other  poets, 
)etter  and  less  known,  for  Aulus  Gellius  tells  us  that  the 
ource  of  Virgil's  line. 

Glauco  et  Panopeae  et  Inoo  Melicertac  {G.  i.  437) 

s  one  by  Parthenius 

rXawft)  /cat  ^t]pei  Kai  eivaXlu)  MeX«/ce/OT/?.^ 

klany  hard  things  have  been  said  of  Alexandrine  poetry, 
.nd  not  undeservedly,  but  Milton's  countrymen  can  hardly 
)lame  Virgil  for  his  sensitiveness  to  the  music  and  enchant- 
nent  of  proper  names,  used  as  the  Alexandrines  used  them, 
iis  mind  was,  however,  too  Italian  to  yield  altogether  to  the 
\lexandrine  manner,  and    the   virile  example  of  Lucretius 

^  See  Teufifel,  Roman  Literature,  §  230,  and  Schanz  (1898)  Rom.  Lit.  §  243, 
n  the  Moretuni.  The  poem  has  been  happy  in  its  translators,  for  Cowper  did 
:  into  EngHsh  from  Virgil's  Latin, 

*  Gellius,  N.  A.  xiii.  27 ;  for  Parthenius  see  Erwin  Rohde,  Der  Griechische 
Ionian,  pp.  113-7  ;  Macrobius,  Sat.  v.  17,  18  Parthenius  quo  gra7iuitatico  in 
^raecis  Virgilitis  usiis  est  (but  see  van  Jan's  note).  He  was  a  favourite  poet  of 
le  Emperor  Tiberius,  who  set  up  his  statue  along  with  Euphorion  of  Chalcis 
nd  Rhianus  (Suet.  Tib.  70).  Euphorion  is  referred  to  by  Virgil  {E.  x.  50)  as 
nitated  by  Gallus,  not,  I  think,  by  himself,  as  Pierron  suggests  {Litl.  Roniaine, 
.  387).  'iiordtn,  Ne2ie  Jahrbiicher,  1901,  p.  267,  says:  "Die  Bucolica  sind 
^eniger  im  Stil  Theokrits  als  der  affectierten  Manieristen  Euphorion  und 
rallus  gehalten,  und  gehoren  daher  zu  den  schwierigsten  Gedichten  in 
iteinischer  Sprache,  die  uns  erhalten  sind  "  ;  a  very  characteristic  judgement 
f  this  scholar,  who  has  a  great  contempt  for  "aesthetic  criticism."  He  con- 
nues :  "  Diese  Manier  iiberwindet  er  durch  das  Studium  des  Lucrez  und 
^nnius,  des  Homer  und  ApoUonius,  und  setzt  an  die  Stelle  ^ci  docla poematia 
rossc  Werke  in  leichtverstandlicher  Sprache."  The  Moretum  is  a  most  vivid 
icture  of  life,  the  servant  (1.  32)  might  be  drawn  from  the  negress  of 
5-day,  and  the  handmill  (1.  19)  is  still  used  by  the  Italian  poor  ;  Deecke, 
taly,  p.  194. 


20  VIRGIL 

guarded  his  thought  and  style  from  its  dangers,  and  gave 
him  something  of 

The  graver  grace,  wherewith  he  crowned 
The  wild  and  sweet  Sicilian  strain.' 

Of  Siro  we  know  less  than  we  do  of  Parthenius,  but  we 
are  helped  by  having  two  little  poems,  attributed  to  Virgil 
and  very  probably  genuine,  of  which  he  is  the  subject.  The 
first  of  these  dates  from  the  moment  when  Virgil  turned 
from  his  preliminary  studies  to  begin  that  of  philosophy. 
The  poem  is  very  short,  but  it  is  full  of  natural  and 
spontaneous  feeling.^ 

He  bids  an  unregretted  farewell  to  the  rhetoricians, 
whom  he  had  not  found  inspired,  and  to  the  grammarians — 

scholasticorum  natio  madens  pingui — 
among   whom   he  dares   to   include  the  great  Varro,^  and 
announces  that  he  is  setting  sail  for  the  haven  of  happiness, 

1  F.  W.  H.  Myers,  Lugano. 

*  For  convenience  the  whole  poem  may  be  quoted — 

Jte  kmc,  inanes,  ite,  rhetoruin  ampullae, 

injlata  \rhoso  non  Achaico  verba,  [fread  rore\ 

et  vos,  Selique  Tarquitique  Varroque, 

scholasticorum  natio  tnadens  pingui, 

ite  hinc,  inanis  cymbalon  iuventutis.  5 

fjique,  0  tnearum  cura,  Sexte,  curarum 

vale,  Sabine;  iam  valete,formosi. 

nos  ad  beatos  vela  mittimus  partus, 

magni  petentes  docta  dicta  Sironis, 

vitamque  ab  omni  vindicabimus  cura.  10 

ite  hinc,  Camcnae,  vos  quoqtte  ite  salvete, 

dukes  Camenae  {namfatebi?iiur  verum, 

dulces  fuistis),  et  tamen  meas  chart  as 

revisit ote,  sed  pudenter  et  raro. 
In  line  7  there  is  a  variant  morosi ;  the  reading  depends  on  whether  we  are  to 
suppose  that  Virgil  was  addressing  his  fellow-students  or  his  teachers.     Line  3  is 
a  restoration. 

Norden  {Neue  Jahrbikher  fiir  kl.  Altertum,  1901,  p.  270,  n.  3)  accepts  this 
poem  as  genuine,  and  characterizes  it  as  beautiful.  He  makes  the  same  point, 
that  Virgil  moved  over  to  Stoicism.  Nettleship  {Ancient  Lives,  p.  38)  says  that 
"  Virgil  probably,  if  we  may  judge  by  the  traces  of  antiquarian  study  in  the  Aeneid, 
learned  in  after  years  to  form  a  very  different  opinion  of  Roman  scholarship." 
Professor  Nettleship,  however,  had  a  weakness  for  grammarians  and  antiquarians, 
as  readers  of  his  Essays  know  well. 

3  Perhaps  he  would  have  been  less  bold  if  he  had  known  Varro,  who  certainly 
made  Cicero  nervous.     See  ad  Atticum,  xiii.  25,  3. 


THE  AGE  AND  THE  MAN  21 

he  is  turning  to  the  learned  lore  of  Siro  {docta  dicta  Sironis), 
and  will  thus  rescue  his  life  from  all  distracting  care ;  the 
Italian  Muses,  the  Camenae,  dear  as  they  have  been  to  him, 
must  henceforth  leave  him — no,  they  must  visit  him  still, 
but  only  at  comely  intervals.  He  does  not  ask  the 
grammarians  and  rhetoricians  to  revisit  him  ;  he  had  got 
from  them  all  they  had  to  give  in  quickening ;  hereafter 
their  work  is  mere  dead  matter  for  him  till  it  is  touched  by 
philosophy  and  the  Muses.  It  was  not  every  Roman  poet 
who  saw  this  so  clearly.  There  is  an  air  of  "  glad  confident 
morning"  about  these  lines,  which  is  not  that  of  Virgil's  later 
and  greater  works — a  suggestion  of  youth,  and  of  hope, 
which  gives  the  piece  its  truth.  Later  on  he  realized,  by 
thought  and  pain,  that  not  even  the  learned  lore  of  Siro 
could  rescue  his  life  from  all  care. 

Siro  was  an  Epicurean,  and  it  is  surely  not  a  strange 
coincidence  that  Virgil's  philosophy  in  his  earlier  work 
is  also  Epicurean,  though  the  fourth  Georgic  indicates 
already  that  he  is  perhaps  not  satisfied  with  the  school. 
But  probably  an  even  stronger  impulse  than  that  of  Siro 
was  given  to  him  in  this  direction  by  Lucretius,  whose 
great  work  was  in  the  hands  of  the  Ciceros  in  the  year  54 
B.C.^  Virgil,  whether  the  parody  of  Catullus  is  genuine 
or  not,  had  certainly  been  a  student  of  his  fellow  country- 
man ;  and  it  is  hardly  overbold  (in  view  of  the  great  influence 
of  Ennius  on  such  men  as  Cicero  and  Lucretius)  to  suggest 
that  Virgil's  knowledge  of  Ennius  dates  from  his  youth, 
though  perhaps  he  did  not  admire  him  so  much  then  as  later 
on  in  life.  When  then  there  appeared  such  a  poem  as  that 
of  Lucretius,  great  every  way,  in  its  grasp  of  principles,  in 
its  exposition  of  the  philosophy  to  which  Virgil  had  so 
joyfully  looked  forward,  in  its  minute  and  sympathetic 
observation  of  nature,  in  its  thoroughly  stalwart  Roman 
temper,  and  (not  least  perhaps  in  Virgil's  eyes  then  or  after- 
wards) in  its  brilliant  handling  of  Latin  metre,  it  is  not 
surprising  that  Virgil  was  captured  by  it  and  remained  its 
captive  for  many  a  year.     It  is  characteristic,  however,  of 

^  Cicero,  ad  Q.  Fr.  ii.  9  (ii)  4  Liuretii  foemata  ut  scribis  ita  sunt,  inuUis 
himmibus  ingernt,  niultae  lanien  artis. 


22  VIRGIL 

Virgil's  genius  that  this  loyalty  did  not  interfere  with  other 
loyalties,  and  that  philosophy  is  throughout  subordinated  to 
poetry.  The  combination  of  thought  and  art  in  Lucretius, 
which  Cicero  recognizes,  may,  as  already  suggested,  have 
helped  to  save  Virgil  from  subjection  to  Alexandrine 
methods  in  poetry.  We  may  also  remark  that  if  Virgil  was 
influenced  by  Lucretius,  he  also  felt  the  influence  of  "the 
anti-Lucretius  in  Lucretius,"  as  M.  Patin  very  happily 
phrases  it.^ 

He  would  thus  return  to  Mantua  with  some  part  at  least 
of  his  joyful  prophecy  fulfilled.  He  had  escaped  the 
pedants ;  he  had  entered  under  happy  auspices  on  the 
study  of  philosophy ;  his  interest  in  nature  was  deepened 
and  quickened  ;  and  he  had  seen  a  wholly  new  field  of  serious 
art  opened  up  before  him.  But  he  had  not  made  his 
fortune.  On  the  contrary,  it  is  quite  conceivable  that 
practical  people  shook  their  heads  over  him.  With  all  his 
philosophy  and  his  rhetoric,  he  had  not  succeeded  in  his 
chosen  vocation  of  a  pleader.  He  had  made  one  attempt  in 
speaking  at  the  bar,  and  then  given  it  up  altogether.^  Once 
more  we  find  that  the  poet 

Is  weak;  and,  man  and  boy, 
Has  been  an  idler  in  the  land. 

His  poetical  attempts  were  finding  favour  with  people  of 
importance  ;  still  the  fact  remained  that  he  was  twenty-seven 
years  of  age  and  not  yet  very  sure  of  any  noticeable  success 
in  life. 

HI 

It  may  not  be  fanciful  to  suppose  that  perhaps  the  first 
public  event  of  which  Virgil  took  notice  as  a  child  or  a  boy 

^  Patin,  Etudes  stir  la  PoJsie  Latiiie,  I.  vii. 

2  We  might  find  perhaps  a  hint  of  the  forsaken  profession  in  the  speech  of 
Aeneas  to  Dido  {A.  iv.  333),  whicli  suggests  the  lawyer  a  little.  The  rhetorical 
training  for  the  profession  may  be  similarly  read  in  the  speech  of  Turnus  {A.  xi, 
377-444),  where  the  rhetoric  surely  goes  beyond  what  we  should  expect  of  the 
speaker.  Drances  is  more  intelligible.  "It  is  a  strange  trade,  I  have  often 
thought,  that  of  advocacy,"  says  Carlyle  in  writing  of  Jeffrey;  of  all  trades 
perhaps  farthest  from  poetry. 


THE  AGE  AND  THE  MAN  23 

was  the  sedition  of  Catiline.^  There  was  some  disturbance 
at  the  time  in  Cisalpine  Gaul,^  and  we  can  imagine  the 
anxiety  felt  through  the  country  during  the  months  at  the 
end  of  63  and  the  beginning  of  62,  when  it  was  yet  uncertain 
what  Catiline  would  do.  Would  he  get  through  into 
Cisalpine  Gaul — into  Transalpine  ?  Mantua  may  have  been 
well  out  of  his  way  in  fact,  but  this  would  hardly  prevent 
alarm.^ 

As  he  grew  older  Virgil  would  learn  more  of  what  Catiline's 
rising  had  meant,  and  with  other  Italians  he  would  learn  to 
hate  Sulla  and  Sulla's  men.*  And  then  as  the  star  of  the 
first  Caesar  rose,  Virgil  with  all  the  Transpadanes  would 
watch  with  eager  interest  the  career  with  which  their  own 
destiny,  their  Roman  citizenship,  was  involved.  In  49  Caesar 
crossed  the  Rubicon  and  gave  Transpadane  Gaul  the  coveted 
citizenship,  and  we  may  be  sure  that  its  inhabitants  saw 
without  regret  the  fall  of  the  Senatorial  party  with  its  Pisones 
and  Marcelli,^  and  five  years  later  mourned  the  Dictator  in 
earnest.  What  Virgil  thought  of  the  murder  may  be  read  at 
the  end  of  the  first  Georgia, 

The  rise  of  Octavian  was  accompanied  with  pain  to 
Transpadane  Gaul.  Lands  had  been  promised  to  the 
veterans,  and  to  fulfil  the  promise  owners  and  occupiers  were 
turned  out.  Little  was  gained  by  this.  The  soldiers  were 
hard  to  satisfy,  and  made  great  disorder.  The  dispossessed 
crowded  to  Rome  to  plead  their  case,  but  in  vain  ;  Octavian 

1  Cf.  Aen.  viii.  668. 

*  Sallust,  Cat.  42  isdem  fere  temporibxis  in  Gallia  citeriore  .  .  .  viotus 
erat. 

^  See  Sallust,  Cat.  56  Catilina  per  montis  iter  facere,  vtodo  ad  urbeni  niodo  in 
Galliani  versus  castra  movere. 

*  He  mentions  Marius  among  the  glories  of  Italy,  exttdii  haec  Dccios  Marios 
viagnosque  Camillos,  G.  ii.  169,  but  to  Sulla  he  never  alludes. 

^  Piso  in  67  had  been  prosecuted  by  Caesar  and  the  democrats  for  the  murder 
of  a  Transpadane  (Sail.  B.  C.  49),  and  Marcus  Marcellus  the  consul  in  51, 
after  trying  to  get  Caesar  recalled  from  his  province  for  enfranchising  Novum 
Comum,  scourged  one  of  the  new  citizens  and  sent  him  to  Caesar  as  a  mani- 
festo (Appian,  B.  C.  ii.  26  ?frjve  pd^Sois  €<p'  oVyS^ ;  Cic.  ad  Alt.  v.  11.  2 
Marcellus  foede  de  Comensi).  See  Mommsen,  Roman  History,  vol.  iv.  p. 
546  n.  and  W.  E.  Heitland,  The  Roman  Republic  iii.  §  1188.  Caesar  gave 
the  civitas  to  Transpadane  Gaul  in  49,  but  it  was  not  incorporated  in  Italy  till 
after  his  death. 


24  VIRGIL 

could  not  offend  the  army.^  But  the  indignation  of  the 
sufferers  did  not  stop  here;  and  the  short  rising  of  L. 
Antonius  followed.  It  was  crushed  at  Perusia  in  41,  when 
Octavian  displayed  great  severity  in  the  hour  of  victory. 

Amongst  the  dispossessed  was  the  family  of  Virgil. 
Mantua  had  suffered  from  its  nearness  to  Cremona,  and 
Virgil  had  to  see  a  soldier  take  possession  of  his  farm  or  his 
father's — barbarus  has  segetesl  His  first  care  was  to  find  a 
refuge  for  his  father,  who  must  have  been  an  elderly  man, 
and  he  found  it  in  the  little  estate  of  his  former  teacher 
Siro. 

Villula,  quae  Sironis  eras,  et  pauper  agelle, 

verum  illi  domino  tu  quoque  divitiae : 
me  tibi,  et  hos  una  mecum,  quos  semper  amavi, 

siquid  de  patria  tristius  audiero, 
commendo,  in  primisque  patrem.     Tu  nunc  eris  illi 

Mantua  quod  fuerat,  quodque  Cremona  prius.^ 

{Catal.  8  (10)). 

One  or  two  things  should  be  considered  here.  First,  we  do 
not  know  where  this  little  villa  was,  nor  what  was  Virgil's 
position  with  regard  to  it.  Siro  must  have  been  dead,  if 
the  first  two  lines  mean  anything.  Had  he  then  left  his 
estate  to  Virgil,  as  a  favourite  pupil  ?  In  the  second  place, 
this  episode  and  this  little  peom  should  not  be  forgotten 
when  we  read  of  Aeneas  carrying  Anchises  from  Troy.  Of 
all  human  relations  in  the  Ae^ieid  that  of  father  and  son  is 
dwelt  on  with  most  frequent  and  affectionate  emphasis.  Let 
us  take  another  illustration,  the  case  of  lapis,  the  surgeon. 
He  was  of  all   men  beloved   of  Apollo  ;    "  to  him   Apollo 

^  Appian,  B.C.  v.  14  (SXXo  h\\  rrX^Oos  'qv  irepuv  7r6Xewv,  at  rais  veve/xyj/jLepais 
yeiTov€vov(Tal  re  \_Maiitua  vae  miserae  niminm  vicina  Cretiiottae]  Koi  iroWa  irpbs 
rwv  cTTpaTiaiTuiv  ddiKOVfJ-evai  Kare^ddiv  roi)  KaiVapos,  dSiKure pas  elvai  rds  diroiKiaeis 
Tu>v  ■n-poypa(puiv'  rds  iJ.ii>  yap  eVi  ex^po^s,  rds  5^  eirl  firjdiv  aSt/coOcrt  yiyvecrdai. 
Suet.  A7t^.  13  nec^zte  veteranoriDn  neqiie  possessoruin  gratiam  tenuit.  Livy, 
Epit.  125,  126. 

"^  "Little  farm,  once  Siro's,  poor  little  field!  but  the  wealth  of  him,  when 
he  was  thy  lord  ;  to  thee  I  entrust  myself,  and  these  with  me,  whom  I^.have 
always  loved,  if  tidings  of  ill  come  from  my  country— most  of  all  my  father 
I  entrust  to  thee.  Thou  must  be  to  him  now  what  once  Mantua  was,  and 
Cremona  before." 


THE  AGE  AND  THE  MAN  25 

himself  offered  his  own  arts,  his  own  gifts — augury  and 
the  lyre  and  swift  arrows ;  but  he,  to  prolong  the  days  of  his 
father,  given  over  to  die,  chose  rather  to  know  the  virtues 
of  herbs  and  the  craft  of  healing,  to  ply  inglorious  a  silent 
art."^  lapis  rejected  poetry  for  medicine;  is  it  not  that 
Virgil  learnt  with  sadness  how  little  poetry  avails  to  ease 
pain,  to  give  sight,  to  lengthen  life  ?  The  father  he  loved — 
in  primisque  patrem — was  blind,  partly  or  wholly.  It  is 
a  moving  picture  of  the  village  home  which  we  gain  when 
we  realize  that  Virgil  would  have  sacrificed  his  own  supreme 
gift,  if,  like  lapis,  he  could  have  given  the  blind  father  sight 
and  life.2 

Suetonius  passes  rapidly  over  the  episode  of  the  planta- 
tions, remarking  that  Virgil  owed  his  escape  from  loss  in 
this  distribution  of  lands  to  Pollio,  Varus,  and  Gallus,  and 
that  it  was  to  celebrate  them  that  he  took  to  pastoral  poetry. 
Now  Virgil  does  not  give  us  any  concise  account  of  the 
affair  himself — one  would  hardly  expect  him  to  do  so — and 
it  has  been  assumed  that  he  was  twice  expelled,  and  that 
after  his  restitution  by  Octavian  he  had  to  call  in  the  help  of 
a  friend  nearer  at  hand  to  save  him  from  the  baj^barus 
in  possession.  It  seems  more  probable  that  Eclogue  ix, 
instead  of  referring  to  a  second  assault  and  expulsion,  is 
really  earlier  in  date  than  Eclogue  i,  and  that  the  two  poems 
refer  to  different  stages  of  one  and  the  same  story,  the  first 
being  set  at  the  front  of  the  book  by  way  of  special  honour 
to  the  ruler.  In  any  case  it  appears  that  Virgil  had  already 
been  writing  poetry  of  some  sort,  presumably  Bucolic,  as  it 
was  on  the  favour  which  his  poetry  had  won  with  Varus 
and  others  that  he  relied  for  help  in  this  time  of  trouble. 
If  not  himself,  others  had  supposed  this  influence  would 
secure  him  against  dispossession.     Yes,  he  says,  so  the  story 

1  Aeneid  xii.  393. 

*  Suet.  V.  Verg.  14.  "  Of  all  the  forms  of  virtue,"  wrote  Mr  Lecky  {Eiir. 
Morals  i.  299),  "  filial  aftection  is  perhaps  that  which  appears  most  rarely  in 
Roman  history."  As  to  the  mother,  who  seems  to  have  made  a  slighter 
impression  on  the  poet,  it  is  conjectured  that  she  married  again,  as  Virgil  left 
most  of  his  property  to  a  half-brother.  Incidentally,  I  do  not  believe  that 
Magia's  name  has  anything  to  do  with  Virgil's  medieval  repute  as  a  magician. 
Rather,  the  popular  mind  could  conceive  of  no  other  form  of  intellectual  great- 
ness.    Plato,  too,  was  made  into  a  magician  in  the  East. 


26  VIRGIL 

went,    but  songs  in   time  of  war   are  helpless    as   pigeons 
before  the  eagle — 

Audieras  et  fama  fuit ;  sed  carmina  tantum 
nostra  valent,  Lycida,  tela  inter  Martia  quantum 
Chaonias  dicunt  aquila  veniente  columbas  {E.  ix.  ii). 

Yet  after  all  he  underestimated   the  power  of  his  poetry, 

for  it  led  his  great  friends  to  intercede  for  him  with  Octavian, 

who   after   a  personal  interview  in  Rome  guaranteed  him 

security  for  the  future — a  great  concession,  as  we  can  see  from 

'/what  Appian  says.     The  story  of  the  visit  to  Rome  and  the 

■interview  is  told  in  the  first  Eclogue  in  a  curious  and  not  very 

1  happy  allegory.     And  there  the  episode  ends. 

IV 

We  must  now  consider  the  poetry.  His  education 
finished,  and  his  one  appearance  made  at  the  bar,  Virgil,  as 
we  saw,  went  back  to  Mantua,  and  began  serious  work  upon 
pastoral  poetry.  The  mode  was  suggested  by  Theocritus, 
whose  influence  is  very  clearly  marked  in  passage  after 
passage  of  the  poems.  But,  as  we  have  seen,  Virgil  was  not 
a  man  of  one  allegiance,  and  other  influences  are  to  be  found, 
— as  foi  instance  that  of  Lucretius  in  Eclogue  vi,  which  is  never- 
theless neither  an  imitation  of  Lucretius  nor  of  Theocritus, 
but,  while  enriched  by  both  of  them,  an  original  work. 
Critics  have  emphasized  again  and  again  Virgil's  dependence 
on  Greek  models,  but  here  as  everywhere  else  the  sympathetic 
reader  will  scarcely  feel  this.  There  may  be  imitation,  but 
the  general  effect  is  not  that  of  imitative  poetry.  It  is  not 
Theocritus,  nor  Lucretius,  whom  we  are  reading,  but  Virgil, 
a  poet  and  their  peer.  One  is  impressed  with  the  justness  of 
Horace's  characterization  of  these  poems — 

Molle  atque  facetum 
Vergilio  adnuerunt  gaudentes  rure  Camenae  (vS.  i,  lo.  44) ; 

the  "  exquisite  playfulness  and  tenderness  "  ^  of  Virgil  leave 

^  This  is  Leslie  Stephen's  description  of  Cowper's  temperament.  Though 
it  was  not  intended  as  a  translation  of  Horace's  phrase,  the  parallel  it 
suggests  may  excuse  the  quotation.  Mollis  is  used  by  Ciceio  to  describe  the 
nature   of  his   hot-tempered    brother   Quintus   {ad  Alt.    i.    17.    3);    he   means 


THE  AGE  AND  THE  MAN  27 

the  most  vivid  and  delightful  iitipression.  "  True  humour," 
says  Carlyle,  "  is  sensibility  in  the  most  catholic  and  deepest 
sense,"  ^  and  Virgil  has  this  mark  of  the  great  poet.  It  is 
a  world  that  smiles  to  him — in  spite  of  soldiers — and  he 
smiles  to  the  world.  He  goes  hand  in  hand  with  Nature  ;  and 
when  he  draws  her,  he  does  it  as  he  sees  her  with  his  own 
eyes.  Theocritus  and  Lucretius  call  his  attention  to  this 
and  that  in  Nature,  but  he  consults  herself  before  he  quite 
believes  them.  His  heart  is  open  {inolle)  to  the  men  and 
women  around  him  too,  and,  if  he  has  not  yet  sounded  their 
deepest  moods,  he  has  still  read  them  aright  so  far.  Man 
and  Nature  are  in  harmony,  and  Virgil  has  already  begun 
to  make  Silenus  and  Lucretius  friends.  He  looks  already 
to  find  truth  in  reconciliation. 

The  episode  of  the  plantation  of  the  veterans,  like  every 
real  experience,  left  its  mark  upon  the  poet.  Of  course,  from 
a  worldly  point  of  view,  it  made  his  fortune.  It  introduced 
him  to  Octavian,  and  thereafter  he  seems  to  have  had  little 
or  no  rough  contact  with  the  world  in  person.  But  this 
meant  very  little.  The  pain  which  he  and  his  father  had 
undergone  had  opened  his  mind.  The  sword  had  gone 
through  his  own  soul  also,  and  his  own  private  trouble,  soon 
healed  as  it  was,  became  the  symbol  of  universal  suffering. 
He  knew  now.  Perhaps  it  was  not  merely  to  compliment  -._ 
Csesar  that  he  set  at  the  front  of  his  book  that  Eclogue ^\y> 
in  which  he  tells  of  Caesar's  personal  kindness  to  himself. 
Tityrus  is  restored  to  his  beech-tree's  shade  and  sings  of 
his  Amaryllis;  the  barbarian  has  restored  to  him  his  fields; 
but  Meliboeus — what  of  him  ? 

Nos  patriae  fines  et  dulcia  linquimus  arva; 
nos  patriam  fugimus.^ 

sensibility,  Quintilian  may  be  consulted  on  facctuni,  vi.  3.  19.  Sainte-Beuve 
(on  Medea,  Revue  des  Deux  Jllondes,  1843)  :  "  II  est  vrai  qu'il  n'y  a  pas  seulement 
chez  lui  (Virgil)  des  traits  de  passion,  on  y  trouve  deja  de  la  sejisibiliit!,  qualite 
moins  precise  et  plutot  moderne ;  mais  pourtant  on  est  trop  empress^ 
d'ordinaire  a  restreindre  le  genie  ancien  ;  en  I'etudiant  mieux  et  en  I'appro- 
fondissant,  on  decouvre  qu'il  avait  devine  plus  de  choses  que  notre  premiere 
prevention  n'est  portee  ^  lui  en  accorder." 

^  Essay  on  Richter  (1827). 

2  '•  We  leave  our  country's  borders  and  her  sweet  fields — we  are  exiles  from 
our  country." 


28  VIRGIL 

Here  in  the  forefront  of  his  work  is  the  picture  of  human 
sorrow,  that  sorrow  which  Virgil  was  to  feel  in  ever-deepening 
intensity.  It  is  a  new  element  in  his  mind  and  heart,  and 
it  becomes  the  test  by  which  he  tries  his  philosophy  and 
his  poetry.  As  yet  it  has  not  shadowed  the  joy  of  life,  but, 
as  we  shall  see,  it  becomes  more  and  more  the  background 
of  all  his  thought — a  part  of  his  being.  "  Zeus,"  says 
Aeschylus,  "  made  for  man  the  road  to  Thought,  and 
established  '  Learn  by  suffering '  to  be  an  abiding  Law."  ^ 

There  is  little  episode  in  the  remaining  twenty  years 
of  Virgil's  life.  He  became  the  friend  of  Maecenas  and 
of  Augustus,  and  they  seem  to  have  done  all  they  could 
to  make  life  easy  for  him.^  It  was  probably  not  much  that 
they  could  do. 

Sint  Maecenates,  non  deerunt,  Flacce,  Marones^ 

said  Martial,  who  was  looking  for  a  Maecenas.  The 
sentiment  has  all  the  coarseness  and  want  of  inner  truth 
that  stamps  so  much  of  the  poetry  of  Rome  between  Persius 
and  Ausonius.  Martial  was  wrong  ;  if  any  one  man  made 
Virgil,  it  was  rather  the  barbarns  than  Maecenas,  but  all  the 
king's  horses  and  all  the  king's  men,  veterans  and  ministers, 
could  never  make  a  Virgil — least  of  all  out  of  a  Martial.  Virgil 
owed  something  to  Maecenas  and  Augustus,  no  doubt.  The 
V'  shepherd  went  to  court,  as  Touchstone  puts  it,  and  learnt 
good  manners — so  they  tell  us.  Myers,  Sellar,  and  Sainte- 
Beuve  all  call  attention  to  this,  and  doubtless  Virgil  did 
not  mingle  with  men  of  affairs,  with  rulers  and  statesmen, 
without  learning  from  them.  Aeneas  might  not  have  been 
*'  the  high  and  mighty  prince "  he  is,  if  Virgil  had  not 
known  Augustus ;  he  perhaps  might  not  have  had  the 
grace   and    dignity   of  manner,  nor   the  essentially    states- 

^  Aesch.  Ag.  ijS — 

TOf  (ppOVelf  ^pOTOVS  oSd}. 

aavra,  rov  Tradet  fiddo^ 
Oevra  Kvpius  ex^tv. 

*  Suet.  V.  Verg.  13  mentions  10,000,000  sesterces,  and  a  house  near  Maecenas' 
gardens  in  Kome. 

^  Martial,  viii.  56,  "  Let  there  be  Maecenases,  Flaccus,  and  Virgils  will  not 
be  wanting." 


THE  AGE  AND  THE  MAN  29 

manlike   cast   of  mind,  which  Virgil  obviously  admired    in 
Augustus. 

But  when  one  considers  who  and  what  manner  of  men 
made  up  the  court,  we  begin  to  wonder  whether  Virgil 
after  all  had  so  much  to  learn  from  them,  and  we  are  hardly 
surprised  that  at  last  he  shrank  from  Rome.  Who  were 
these  men  }  In  a  most  interesting  essay  on  Horace,  M. 
Goumy  ^  enumerates  some  of  them.  They  were  not  of  the 
old  aristocracy,  in  the  main  ;  they  were  new  men,  partisans 
and  agents  of  Octavian  (let  us,  for  the  moment,  no^  say 
Augustus) — soldiers  of  fortune  who  had  rallied  to  him  as  his 
opponents  went  down — Plancus  morbo  proditor;'^  Dellius 
desultor  bdlorum  civiliuin;'^  LoUius"*  and  Murena  (by 
adoption,  Varro)^ — men  who  were  enriched  by  the  civil 
wars,  by  blood  and  confiscation.  Horace  addressed  poems 
to  these  people,  but  even  he,  in  spite  of  his  curious  pleasure 
in  being  the  friend  of  the  great,^  found  that  in  the  long  run 
he  could  have  too  much  of  Rome  and  the  court.  Virgil 
could  hardly  have  met  them  without  thinking  of  Siro's  villa. 
Even  Augustus  must  at  times  have  shocked  him.  Suetonius 
tells  us,  for  instance,  that  Augustus  ofifered  Virgil  the  estate 
of  some  exile,  but  Virgil  "could  not  bear  to  accept  it" — 
noft  sustijtuit  accipere?  One  is  tempted  to  try  to  picture 
the  interview  and  to  wonder  how  Virgil  expressed  himself, 

'  Goumy,  Les  Latins,  pp.  224-38.  No  one  who  has  read  this  book  will  fail 
to  regret  the  early  death  of  its  author. 

*  Velleius  Paterculus,  ii.  83.  i.     "Treachery  was  a  disease  with  him." 

*  Messalla's  designation  of  him,  Sen.  Rhet.  Suas.  i.  7.  ("The  circus-rider  of 
the  Civil  Wars" — it  means  he  always  knew  the  exact  moment  when  to  jump 
to  the  next  horse.) 

*  Veil.  Pat.  ii.  102  ;  Pliny,  N.H.  ix.  35,  58,  118. 

*  See  Verrall,  Studies  in  Horace. 

*  Cf.  Satires,  ii.  i.  75  lainen  me  \  cum  magnis  vixisse  invita  fatebitur  usque  \ 
invidia  ;  and  even  later  in  life  he  says  the  same,  Epp.  i.  17.  1$  principibus placuisse 
viris  non  ultima  laus  est ;  and  finally  in  his  own  literary  epitaph  he  says  it 
again,  Epp.  i.  20.  23  me  primis  Urbis  belli placuisse  domigue.  And  yet  he  was 
no  sycophant,  and  perhaps  even  a  reluctant  Caesarian.  The  boast  of  Horace 
is  found  again  in  a  letter  of  Sir  Walter  Scott's  given  by  Lockhart  (ch.  xxxix.)  : 
"  To  have  lived  respected  and  regarded  by  some  of  the  best  men  in  our  age, 
is  enough  for  an  individual  like  me."  I  believe  Horace  may  quite  well  have 
meant  our  Virgil  in  Odes  iv.  12.  The  phrase  (1.  15)  iuvenum  nobilium  cliens 
as  a  description  of  Virgil  would  strike  him  much  less  curiously  than  it  does  the 
modern  reader.  ''Suet.  v.   Verg.  12. 


1 


30 


VIRGIL 


between  conflicting  feelings,  for  he  would  not  wish  to  hurt 
his  friend. 

We  have  a  picture  of  Virgil  at  court  from  the  hand  of 
a  freedman  of  Maecenas,  Melissus  by  name.^  This  man, 
though  freeborn  and  entitled  to  freedom,  had  preferred  to 
remain  a  slave  to  Maecenas.  He  was  soon  manumitted, 
and  (says  Suetonius)  Augusto  etiam  insimiatus  est,  and 
became  a  librarian.  At  sixty  years  of  age  he  began  to 
compile  books  of  funny  stories  {Ineptiae),  and  achieved  no 
less  than  150  volumes,  beside  writing  some  comedies. 
Melissus  tells  us  that  Virgil  was  "very  slow  of  speech,  and 
almost  like  an  uneducated  person,"  while  his  countenance 
was  that  of  a  rustic.^  This  is  the  hero  as  seen  by  the  valet. 
Still,  we  must  be  grateful  to  him  for  a  picture,  which  is 
most  probably  true,  though  we  must  interpret  it  for  our- 
selves, Virgil's  silence  in  the  court  of  Augustus  we  can 
readily  accept,  but  for  the  true  explanation  let  us  consult 
another  poet.  Browning  in  the  Epistle  of  Karshish  describes 
the  air  of  the  quickened  Lazarus  among  friends  and  strangers, 
and  the  effect  of 

Heaven  opened  to  a  soul  while  yet  on  earth  ; 

and  substantially  it  is  true  of  the  poet. 

He  holds  on  firmly  to  some  thread  of  life. 

Which  runs  across  some  vast  distracting  orb 

Of  glory  on  either  side  that  meagre  thread,  .  ,  . 

The  spiritual  life  around  the  earthly  life  ; 

The  law  of  that  is  known  to  him  as  this.  .  .  . 

So  is  the  man  perplext  with  impulses 

Sudden  to  start  off  crosswise,  not  straight  on. 

Proclaiming  what  is  right  and  wrong  across. 

And  not  along,  this  black  thread  through  the  blaze  .  .  . 

1  Suet,  de  Gramm.  21.  The  books  were  probably  not  unlike  those  of  English 
anecdotographers.  Specimens  may  be  found  in  Macrobius,  Saturnalia,  bk.  ii, 
opening  chapters.  One  of  Macrobius'  stories  of  Augustus  I  have  heard  told 
of  Napoleon  III.  Pascal's  "diseur  de  bons  mots,  mauvais  caractere "  may  be 
remembered. 

*  Suet.  V.  Verg.  l6  in  sermone  tardissimum  ac  faeue  indocto  similem  fiiisse 
Melissus  tradit.     Ibid.  %  facie  rusticana. 


THE  AGE  AND  THE  MAN  31 

Something,  a  word,  a  tick  o'  the  blood  within 
Admonishes  ;  then  back  he  sinks  at  once 
To  ashes  that  was  very  fire  before  .  .  . 
He  merely  looked  with  his  large  eyes  on  me. 

The  great  poet  spoke  another  language  and  thought  other 
thoughts  than  these  men  of  the  court,  and  was  probably 
never  at  home  with  them.  He  stumbled  in  his  speech,  and 
took  refuge  in  silence,  and  then  in  flight  from  Rome,  where 
there  were  other  embarrassing  incidents  beside  those  of  the 
court.  For  we  are  told  that  on  one  occasion,  when  his 
verses,  probably  the  Eclogues,  were  being  read  in  the  theatre, 
he  received  from  the  people  a  demonstration  usually  reserved 
for  Augustus.^ 

Yet  we  have  glimpses  of  a  circle  which  he  found  congenial. 
Horace  more  than  once  refers  to  him,  and  always  in  terms 
of  warm  affection  ;  while  Virgil's  feeling  for  Horace  is  shown 
by  his  introduction  of  him  to  Maecenas.  It  is  difficult  to 
see  in  the  Epodes  and  earlier  Satires  anything  very  much 
akin  to  Virgil's  genius ;  but  after  all  contrast  is  often  a 
source  of  friendship,  or  at  least  of  interest,  and  there  was 
certainly  a  sturdy  Italian  manhood  about  Horace  which 
may  well  have  attracted  Virgil.  Of  Varius  we  know  little, 
but  Horace  classes  him  with  Virgil  among  the  "white  souls," 
and  Virgil  made  him  his  literary  executor,  Maecenas,  the 
centre  of  the  group,  owes  his  immortality  to  his  poet  friends. 
With  their  aid  and  that  of  other  writers,  who  have  preserved 
memories  of  him,  we  can  see  him  still — statesman,  fop, 
husband,  and  friend,  a  man  of  affectations  in  dress  and 
jewel,  and  precious  beyond  intelligibility  in  language ;  who 
quarrelled  a  thousand  times  with  his  wife  and  had  as  many 
reconciliations,  though  without  excessive  faithfulness  on 
either  side;  who  flaunted  his  dislike  for  the  toga  so  far 
as  to  refuse  to  wear  it  even  when  acting  as  the  Emperor's 
deputy ;    who    tormented    his    friends   with    his   complaints 

^  Tacitus,  Dial.  13  f>opuIus  qui  auditis  in  theatro  vcrsibus  Vergilii  surrexit 
universus  et  forte  praesentem  spectanletnque  Vergilium  veneratus  est  sic  quasi 
Augusttim.  Cf.  Suet.  v.  Verg.  e6  Bucolica  eo  successti  edidit  ut  in  scaena  qiioque 
per  cantores  crebro  pronuntiarentur.  Compare  the  triumph  of  fohn  Gilpin  in 
1785,  beyond  the  wish  of  the  author. 


32  VIRGIL 

about  his  health,  gave  them  estates,  listened  to  their  poetry, 
and  won  their  love  ;  and  who,  finally,  was  a  shrewd  and 
moderate  statesman,  sparing  the  sword,  never  abusing  his 
power,  and  guilty  of  no  outrage  but  upon  his  mother- 
tongue.^ 

These  and  others  were  Virgil's  intimates.  It  is  easy  to 
guess  that  it  is  to  them  that  Suetonius  refers  when  he  speaks 
of  Virgil  reading  his  poems  to  others  than  Augustus,  "  but 
not  often,  and  generally  passages  about  which  he  was  doubt- 
ful, with  a  view  to  criticism."  ^  A  poet  who  heard  him  read, 
Julius  Montanus  by  name,  "  used  to  say  that  he  would  steal 
Virgil's  voice  and  pronunciation  and  delivery,  if  he  could, 
for  verses  would  sound  well  when  he  read  them  which  from 
any  other  lips  were  empty  and  dumb."  ^ 

We  hear  of  these  readings  from  Propertius,  who  seems 
to  have  been  present  at  one  or  more  of  them,  and  gave  his 
countrymen  a  hint  of  what  to  expect  when  the  Aeneid 
should  be  published.*  That  Horace  read  some  of  his  lyrical 
poems  to  his  friends  we  learn  from  Ovid,^  who  heard  him, 
though  we  can  hardly  imagine  much  intimacy  between  these 
two  men.  Virgil,  however,  Ovid  neither  heard  nor  met — 
Vergilium  vidi  tantuni  is  the  famous  phrase.®  Possibly 
Virgil's  preference  for  living  away  from  Rome  was  the 
cause  ;  and  in  any  case  Ovid  was  only  twenty-four  years 
old  when  the  great  poet  died. 

Virgil  fled  from  Rome  to  Naples,  to  the  "  sweet  Par- 
thenope,"  who  cherished  him  "  embowered  in  pursuits  of 
inglorious  peace."  '  There  he  lived  and  wrote  the  Georgics ; 
there  he  was  buried  ;  and  after  death  he  became  the  great 
legendary  hero  or  patron  saint  of  the  place  for  centuries. 

^  See  Seneca,  Ep.  114.  4-7  ;  Macrobius,  Sat.  ii.  4.  12,  and  Horace, /aj-j/w. 

*  Suet.  V.   Verg.  33.  ^  \\i\^,  29. 

*  Prop.  iii.  32,  59-66 ;  of.  Suet.  v.   Vcrg.  30. 

^  Ovid,  Trisiia,  iv.  10,  49.    Da  la  Ville  de  yWxxnoxi'i,  Jeimesse  cCOvide,  217,  218. 

*  Ibid.  51.  This  phrase  is  familiar  to  the  English  reader  in  Sir  Walter  Scott's 
account  of  his  one  meeting  with  Burns.     Life  of  Scott,  vol.  i.  p.  185. 

"^  Conington's  translation  of  the  conclusion  of  G.  iv.  Ileyne  bracketed  the 
four  lines  of  biography,  but  they  seem  to  be  generally  accepted.  Studiis 
iiorentem  ignobi/is  oti  surely  should  be  above  suspicion.  Tacitus  alludes  to  this 
retreat  as  a  happy  contrast  with  the  life  of  an  orator — vialo  securiitn  et  quitttim 
Vergilii  secessum,  says  one  of  the  persons  in  the  Dialogue  on  Orators  (13). 


THE  AGE  AND  THE  MAN  33 


V 

"  I  do  not  know  whether  the  critics  will  agree  with  me," 
wrote  Burns,  who  read  Dryden's  translation,  "  but  the 
Georgics  are  to  me  by  far  the  best  of  Virgil."  ^  This  was 
Dryden's  own  opinion.  In  scope  and  conception  the  Georgics 
are  greatly  in  advance  of  the  Eclogues.  The  poet  has  more 
range,  more  freedom,  more  depth  of  reflection  and  insight, 
and  more  music.  He  has  added,  critics  tells  us,  Hesiod, 
Aratus,  and  Nicander  to  his  sources,  and  perhaps  others  as 
well ;  but,  as  always  in  a  great  poet's  work,  our  dominant 
impression  is  of  a  distinct  and  independent  personality,  an 
original  mind. 

For,  as  we  read  the  Georgics,  we  grow  more  and  more 
conscious  that  they  are  the  outcome  of  experience,  of 
impression  and  thought.  Here  and  there  we  meet,  it  is 
true,  reminiscences  of  Alexandrine  literature,  which  we  are 
sometimes  glad  to  forget,  as  they  disturb  rather  than  help 
us.  They  are  so  far  useful,  however,  that  they  show  the 
hold  which  that  literature  had  upon  Virgil ;  and  their 
relative  unimportance  in  the  Georgics  as  compared  with 
the  Eclogues  reveals  the  progress  of  his  emancipation.  To 
one  such  passage  we  shall  have  to  return.  We  may  also, 
for  the  present,  postpone  all  reference  to  Roman  history, 
and,  as  far  as  possible,  the  consideration  of  the  Georgics  as 
a  homage  to  Italy,  and  study  the  poem  as  a  part  of  the 
history  of  the  poet's  mind. 

The  poet  of  the  Eclogues  had  had  his  experience  of 
danger  and  privation,  but  the  great  note  of  the  Eclogues  is  I 
after  all  happiness,  a  youthful  happiness.  Life — apart 
from  military  colonies  and  the  disturbance  they  bring — 
is  bright  and  sunny,  with  plenty  of  beech-tree  shade  when 
it  is  too  sunny;  and  its  main  occupations  are  singing,  while 
the  goats  graze,  and  making  love  to  Amaryllis.  Even  in 
spite  of  his  assertions,  we  hardly  feel  that  the  love-lorn 
shepherd  is  really  inconsolable.  But  the  Georgics  show  a 
different  spirit.      Here    we    find    the    grim  realization  that 

^  Letter  to  Mrs.  Dunlop,  May  4,  1788.    So  also  judged  Montaigne,  Essays  ii.  10 
(Florio),  Essay  67  (Cotton). 


34  VIRGIL 

life  involves  a  great  deal  more  work  than  Menalcas  and 
the  rest  had  thought,  hard  work,  and  work  all  the  year 
round ;  vigilance  never  to  be  remitted,  and  labour  which 
it  is  ruin  to  relax.  This  Virgil  brings  out,  in  speaking  of 
pulse — "spite  of  all  patience  in  choosing,  spite  of  all  pains 
in  examining,  I  have  seen  it  degenerate  all  the  same,  except 
man  applied  himself  (vis  humand)  year  by  year,  to  pick  out 
the  largest  one  by  one.  So  is  it,  all  earthly  things  are 
doomed  to  fall  away  and  slip  back  and  back,  even  as,  if  a 
boatman,  who  scarcely  manages  to  force  his  boat  up  stream 
by  rowing,  relax  his  arms  by  chance,  the  headlong  current 
whirls  him  away  down  the  river"  {G.  i.  197-203).  Over 
and  over  again  the  work  has  to  be  done,  the  vines  must  be 
dressed,  a  toil  cui  nunquam  exJiausti  satis  est ;  every  year 
the  ground  has  to  be  hoed  "  eternally  "  [aeternum  frangenda 
bidentibus) ;  round  and  round  in  a  circle  comes  the  husband- 
man's toil,  as  the  year  revolves  upon  itself  {G.  ii.  397-402). 

Scilicet  omnibus  est  labor  impendendus — 

the  very  rhythm  tells  its  tale — work  is  to  be  paid  into  every- 
thing, and  more  than  work,  for  labor  is  the  toil  that  brings 
fatigue  and  exhaustion.  And  withal,  "poor  mortals  that  we 
are,  our  brightest  days  of  life  are  first  to  fly  ;  on  creeps 
disease  and  the  gloom  of  age,  and  suffering  sweeps  us  off  and 
the  ruthless  cruelty  of  death"  {G.  iii.  36).  Even  the  bees — 
the  Italians  of  the  insect  world — are  not  exempt  from  "the 
chances  oi  our  life"  {G.  iv.  251). 

There  are  those  who  find  pessimism  in  this  unflinching 
picture  of  human  life,  but  this  is  not  just.  The  poet  is 
doing  his  proper  work  in  presenting  to  us  faithfully  one 
aspect  of  life  which  cannot  be  obscured.  If  he  stopped 
there,  and  showed  us  only  a  monotony  of  merciless  toil 
without  any  corresponding  values,  the  charge  of  pessimism 
would  be  just.  But  the  emphasis  lies  quite  as  much  on 
the  values — on  the  recompense  of  labour  and  on  the  con- 
solations of  Nature,  the  meaning  of  all  which  is  only  to  be 
reached  by  a  true  apprehension  of  what  they  are  required 
to  do  for  us.  They  neod  their  background,  which  is  real 
experience  of  toil  and  pain. 


THE  AGE  AND  THE  MAN  35 

The  work  of  the  farmer  is  heavy  and  unceasing.  Earth 
is  a  hard  mistress,  but  still  she  is  the  justest  of  all  created 
beings — iustissinia  tellus  {G.  ii.  460) — and  she  makes  no 
scruple  about  paying  her  wages  promptly  and  in  full,  when 
the  work  required  has  been  done  for  them — 

fundit  humo  facilem  victum  ^  {G.  ii.  460). 

Nature  has  appointed  "  laws  and  eternal  ordinances " 
{G.  i.  60),  and  it  is  the  disciple  of  Lucretius  wl-o  u^es  the 
words,  knowing  quite  well  what  they  mean.  The  tree  will 
readily  do  what  you  tell  it,  if  you  take  the  right  way  of 
telling  it  {G.  ii.  52).  Virgil  uses  the  same  word  of  farm 
labour  as  he  does  of  Rome's  imperial  work.  Such  phrases 
as  imperat  arvis  {G.  i.  99),  dura  exerce  imperia  [G.  iii.  369),  may 
be  set  side  by  side  with  the  famous  word  of  Anchises — 

tu  regere  imperio  populos  Romane  memento  ^(yj.  vi.  851), 

while  the  accompanying /(^m  iinpo7iere  vwretn  also  suggests 
a  comparison.  The  world  of  men  and  the  world  of  nature 
are  only  to  be  ruled  in  one  way — by  obedience  to  the  proper 
laws  of  their  being. 

It  may  not  be  fanciful,  perhaps,  to  connect  with  this 
Virgil's  practice  of  directing  the  farmer  to  watch  the  stars 
and  to  regulate  his  work  by  them ;  they  mean  as  much  to 
the  farmer  as  to  the  sailor,  he  says.  The  Roman  calendar 
had  only  recently  emerged  from  incredible  chaos,  and  it 
might  easily  have  returned  to  it,  but  no  college  of  pontiffs 
could  reach  the  stellar  system.^  So  long  as  the  farmer,  in 
Emerson's  telling  phrase,  "  hitched  his  wagon  to  a  star,"  he 
was  safe,  he  would  reap  the  reward  of  his  labour,  and  would 
have  no  cause  to  grumble  at  the  universe. 

But  apart  from  such  rewards  as  Earth  gives  him,  the 
farmer  has  a  reward  within  himself  in  the  hardening  of 
his  fibre  and  the  sharpening  of  his  faculties.  Using  the 
form  of  an  old  story,  the  poet  tells  us  that  Jupiter  chose 

^  "Earth,  that  gives  all  their  due,  pours  out  from  her  soil   plenteous  susten- 
ance "  (Conington). 

*  "Yours,  Roman,  be  the  lesson  to  govern  the  nations  as  their  lord  ...  to 
impose  the  settled  rule  of  peace  "  (Conington). 

*  Suetonius,  y«/e«j  40,  a  very  interesting  chapter.     See  also  p.  150. 


36  VIRGIL 

that  the  culture  of  the  land  should  not  be  easy  ;  by  cares 
he  meant  to  quicken  mortal  hearts.  He  himself  gave  the 
snake  its  poison,  and  bade  the  wolf  raven,  bade  the  sea  toss, 
and  put  fire  and  wine  out  of  reach,  that  experience  by 
patient  thought  might  hammer  out  the  divers  arts  little 
by  little.  Thus  came  the  arts — it  was  toil,  unsparing  toil, 
that  won  all  the  victories,  and  the  pressure  of  want  and 
grinding  adversity — 

labor  omnia  vicit 
improbus  et  duris  urgens  in  rebus  egestas  {G.  i.  121- 146).  ^ 

Look  at  the  men  whom  this  rough  Italian  farm-life  has 
bred — those  hard,  and  more  than  hard,  frames  they  strip 
for  the  wrestling  {G.  ii.  531) — the  Ligurian  (a  North  Italian 
people,  it  should  be  noted)  inured  to  hardship  {adsuetunique 
malo  Ligurem,  G.  ii.  168) — and  the  youth  of  Italy  in  general, 

patiens  operum  exiguoque  adsueta  iuventus  ^  (6".  ii.  472). 

Is  it  surprising  that  a  people  bred  in  this  hard  school  to  be 
masters  of  themselves  are  masters  of  the  world,  a  people  of 
Marii  and  Scipios  {G.  ii.  167-172,  532  f.)? 

But  man  has  other  sources  of  happiness  as  well,  and  here, 
I  think,  the  value  of  the  Georgics  is  still  unexhausted.  The 
poet  looks  at  Nature,  and  if  he  does  not  find,  like  Bernardin 
de  St  Pierre,  some  special  profit  or  pleasure  designed  for 
mankind  in  every  detail  of  creation,  he  at  least  finds  a 
pleasure  and  a  happiness  in  them  all,  which  may  or  may 
not  have  been  meant  for  him,  but  it  is  there.  The  trees, 
with  all  their  beauties  and  their  feelings  too  {G.  ii.  82), 
plants  and  their  ways,  wild  and  cultivated  (the  lucerne,  for 
example — "  all  Venetia  is  full  of  it,"  says  Servius  ^),  and  birds 
and  beasts  and  insects — he    enjoys   them   all,  thinks    about 

^  "  So  Toil  conquered  the  world,  relentless  Toil,  and  Want  that  grinds  in  adver- 
sity "  (Conington).  Compare  a  fine  passage  in  Carlyle's  essay  entitled  Charac- 
teristics, beginning  "Nevertheless,  doubt  as  we  will,  man  is  actually  Here,"  and 
ending  "  Ever  must  Pain  urge  us  to  Labour  ;  and  only  in  free  Effort  can  any 
blessedness  be  imagined  for  us."  Cf.  AUeyne  Ireland,  The  Far  Eastern  Tropics, 
pp.  8-10,  on  the  growth  of  civilization  in  the  temperate  zone  as  distinct  from  the 
tropics. 

2  "  A  youth  patient  of  toil  and  accustomed  to  scant  fare." 

2  Servius  on  G.  i.  215,  Hui us  plena  Venetia  est. 


\ 


THE  AGE  AND  THE  MAN  37 

them  and  smiles  to  them.  For  all  through  the  Gcorgics 
runs  the  most  delicate  humour.  The  farmer  stamps  out 
the  insect  and  the  vermin  as  mere  pests,  but  the  poet 
looks  at  things  from  their  point  of  view,  and  the  contrast 
is  for  him  full  of  pathos  and  humour.  The  tiny  mouse  has 
her  mansions  and  her  granaries,  quite  as  significant  to  her 
as  his  are  to  the  farmer.  How  can  the  poet  of  work  find 
in  his  heart  anything  but  sympathy  for  the  ant  in  her 
anxiety  about  her  old  age  {G.  i.  181  f.)?  When  he  comes 
to  the  bees,  he  enters  so  heartily  and  delightfully  into  their 
concerns, — their  care  for  their  parvos  Quirites,  their  loyalty 
to  their  king,  their  true  Italian  passion  for  possession 
{amor  habcndi),  their  Cyclopean  energy,  their  laws  and 
constitution,  their  good  looks,  and  those  terrible  commotions 
that  a  handful  of  dust  will  quiet, — that  one  could  almost 
believe  he  had  been  a  bee  himself,  but  that  bees  on  the 
whole  seem  a  little  deficient  in  humour.  How  much,  in 
short,  is  his  conclusion,  "we  see  in  nature  that  is  ours." 

Turning  to  man's  life  Virgil  finds  it  also  full  of  charm 
and  happiness.  In  passages  that  recall  the  humour  and  the 
close  description  of  Cowper's  Task,  he  tells  of  the  joys  of 
spring  and  autumn,  of  the  genial  winter  {genialis  hienis)  in 
general  and  the  winter  night  in  the  cottage — 

I  love  thee,  all  unlovely  as  thou  seem'st. 

And  dreaded  as  thou  art  .  .  . 

I  crown  thee  king  of  intimate  delights, 

Fireside  enjoyments,  home-born  happiness 

And  all  the  comforts  that  the  lowly  roof 

Of  undisturb'd  Retirement,  and  the  hours 

Of  long  uninterrupted  evening,  know  {Task,  bk.  iv). 

The  sum  of  the  whole  matter  is  given  in  the  great  passage 
which  closes  the  second  Georgic — 0  fortimatos — where  the 
poet  sums  up  the  joys  of  labour  for  the  Earth  and  of  her 
rewards,  of  the  settled  low  content,  the  sturdy  character, 
the  yearly  round  with  fresh  pleasures  in  every  season,  and 
all  the  happiness  of  honest  married  life  and  children. 

There  are  signs  in  the  Georgics  of  a  change  coming  over 
the  poet's  philosophy  and  his  attitude  toward  Epicureanism. 


38  VIRGIL 

This  question  must  be  reserved  for  treatment  in  another 
chapter.  For  the  moment  it  is  enough  to  say  that  he  seems 
to  be  moving  away  from  the  position  of  Lucretius  and  Siro, 
and  feeling  his  way  toward  another  ;  and  meanwhile  though 
he  congratulates  the  man  who  grasps  the  laws  of  Nature — 

Felix  qui  potuit  rerum  cognoscere  causas  ^  {G.  ii.  490), 

he  himself  finds  his  happiness  elsewhere — 

Fortunatus  et  ille  deos  qui  novit  agrestes 
Panaque     Silvanumque     senem     Nymphasque     sorores  ^ 
(ibid.  493)  ; 

happiness  lying,  that  is,  in  the  contemplation  of  Nature's 
beauty  and  the  realization  of  the  quieter  joys  possible  to  man. 
He  has  made  progress,  too,  in  his  delineation  of  passion. 
It  is  a  considerable  step  from  Amaryllis  to  Eurydice.  There 
is  too  much  that  is  Alexandrine  in  the  closing  episode  of  the 
fourth  Georgic,  but  there  is  feeling  in  the  lines — 

Ilia  '  quis  et  me'  inquit  '  miseram  et  te  perdidit,  Orpheu, 
quis  tantus  furor  ^  en,  iterum  crudelia  retro 
fata  vocant,  conditque  natantia  lumina  somnus. 
lamque  vale  ;  feror  ingenti  circumdata  nocte 
invalidasque  tibi  tendens,  heu  non  tua,  palmas '  ^ 

{G.  iv.  494). 

But  Virgil  was  to  do  greater  work  than  this,  for  the  language 
of  passion  in  the  Aeneid  is  clearer,  stronger,  and  more 
simple. 

^  "Happy  the  man  who  has  gained  a  knowledge  of  the  causes  of  things" 
(Conington).  It  is  in  such  phrases  as  this — e.g.  sunt  lacrimae  rertun — that  Virgil 
is  hardest  to  translate.  He  means,  I  think,  by  rerum  causas  the  world  and  all 
the  fabric  of  law  on  which  it  rests. 

2  *' Blest  is  he  also  who  has  for  his  friends  the  gods  of  the  countryside — Pan, 
and  old  Silvanus,  and  the  sisterhood  of  Nymphs."  Cf.  Mr  Warde  Fowler's 
Religious  Experience  of  the  Roman  People,  lecture  xviii,  on  religious  feeling  in 
the  poems  of  Virgil,  and  especially  pp.  406  ff.  "  Let  us  mark  the  word  novit," 
he  says  of  this  passage. 

^  "She  cried — '  Oh  !  what  madness,  what  monstrous  madness  has  undone  me, 
poor  me,  and  thee  too,  my  Orpheus  ?  Look  !  again  that  cruel  destiny  is  calling 
me  back,  and  sleep  is  burying  my  swimming  eyes.  And  now  farewell.  I  am 
borne  away,  swathed  in  night's  vast  pall,  and  stretching  towards  thee  powerless 
hands — thine  own,  alas  !  no  longer  '  "  (Conington).  The  English  is  less  involved 
than  the  Latin. 


THE  AGE  AND  THE  MAN  39 

Of  course  the  Gcorgics  secured  Virgil's  fame,  even  if  it  had 
not  been  secure  before.  Obscure  people  parodied  occasional 
lines, ^  but  the  work  was  out  of  every  one's  reach  but  the 
author's.  It  touched  Italy  to  the  heart.  It  was  the  most 
Italian  and  the  most  poetic  work  ever  done  in  Latin.  If  in 
some  ways  it  clearly  falls  short  of  the  de  Rerii^n  Natura,  in 
concentration  for  instance,  and  in  speculative  grasp  of 
principles,  it  has  a  wealth  of  poetry,  which  makes  us  forget 
its  shortcomings,  and  which,  with  the  Aeneid  to  support  it, 
captured  the  reading  world  altogether  from  Lucretius. 

The  last  ten  years  of  his  life  Virgil  devoted  to  the  Aeneid. 
He  lived,  as  we  have  seen,  chiefly  at  Naples.  In  the  year 
19  B.C.  he  went  to  Greece,  apparently  meaning  to  give  the 
Aeneid  its  finishing  touches  there.^  At  Athens  he  met 
Augustus,  returning  from  the  East,  who  persuaded  the  poet 
to  return  to  Italy  with  him.  Unfortunately  they  made  a 
visit  to  the  ruins  of  Megara  ^  on  a  very  hot  day,  and  Virgil 
contracted  some  disorder.*  The  journey  homeward  made 
matters  worse,  and  he  was  so  ill  on  reaching  Brundusium 
that  he  only  lived  a  few  days  and  died  on  September  21. 

Suetoniustellsus  that  before  leaving  Italy  Virgil  had  charged 
his  old  poet-friend  Varius  to  burn  the  Aeneid  if  anything 
happened  to  him,  but  that  Varius  had  refused.  In  his  last 
illness  he  wished  to  burn  it  himself,  but  no  one  would  bring 
him  his  scrinia.  Failing  in  this,  he  gave  verbal  instructions 
that  Varius  and  Plotius  Tucca — the  two  men  whom  Horace 
had  grouped  with  him  as  "  the  whitest  of  souls  " — were  to  take 
charge  of  his  writings,  but  not  to  publish  anything  which  he 
had   not  published    himself.     But  he  had  reckoned  without 

^  Suetonius  v.  Verg.  43.  Some  one  called  Numitorius  wrote  Antibtuolica,  of 
which  Suetonius  preserves  three  lines — e.g.  Tityre  sitogacalda  tibi est,  quo  ieginine 
fagi} — and  some  one  else  finished  off  Nudus  ara,  sere  ntidus  (G.  i.  299)  habebis 
frigora  febrem.  Servius  also  on  E.  ii.  23  quotes  the  malicious  punctuation  of 
Vergiliomastix. 

*  Suet.  V.  Verg.  35  Impositurus  Aeneidi  sumtnam  viamim  statuit  in  Graeciam 
et  in  Asiam  secedere. 

*  Five  and  twenty  years  before  (45  B.C.)  Servius  Sulpicius  had  written  the 
famous  letter  to  Cicero  {ad  Fain.  iv.  5),  in  which  he  spoke  of  the  thoughts 
awakened  in  him  by  these  very  ruins. 

*  Horace,  Sat.  i.  5.  49,  tells  us  of  Virgil  suffering  from  indigestion  on  their 
journey  together  from  Rome  to  Brundusium  wiih  Maecenas.  The  satire  is  trans- 
lated by  Cowper  (1759). 


40  VIRGIL 

the  Emperor,  who  knew  too  much  of  the  A enetd  to  allow  it 
to  be  lost,  and  instructed  Varius  to  give  it  to  the  world 
without  addition.  This  Varius  did,  making  only  the  slightest 
corrections.  It  must  have  been  with  emotion  that  he  read 
after  his  friend's  death  two  lines  borrowed  from  himself  and 
set  in  the  very  heart  of  the  poem.^ 

Virgil  had  meant,  it  is  said,  to  devote  three  more  years 
to  the  revision  of  the  Aenez'd,  and  then  give  the  rest  of  his 
life  to  philosophy.2  If  the  reason  for  this  be  asked,  is  it 
not  probable  that  he  felt  the  unresolved  problems  of  the 
Aeneid,  and  that,  with  the  fuller  knowledge  of  the  cares  of 
mankind,  which  he  had  gained  with  years,  he  longed  still 
more  for  that  haven  of  rest  and  happiness,  which  he  had  so 
long  ago  promised  himself  to  find  in  philosophy, 

tendebatque  manus  ripae  ulterioris  amore  ?^ 

^  Cf.  Macr.  Sat.  vi.  i.  39.  The  lines  of  the  Aeneid  are  vi.  621,  and  are 
modelled  after  Varius ' 

vendidit  hie  haiitim  populis  agrosque  Quiriium 
eripuit :  fixit  leges  pretio  at  que  refixit. 
*  Suet.  V.    Verg.   35   Trieiifiioque  continuo  nihil  amplius  qttam  emendare  ut 
reliqiia  vita  tantum  philosophiae  vacaret. 

^  A,   vi.   314,   "and  stretched  forth  passionate  hands  to  the  farther  shore" 
(Mackaii). 


CHAPTER  II 
LITERATURE.— 1.  LITERARY  INFLUENCES 

"There  is  through  all  art  a  filiation.  If  you  see  a  great  master,  you  will 
always  find  that  he  used  what  was  good  in  his  predecessors,  and  that  it  was 
this  which  made  him  great.  Men  like  Raphael  do  not  spring  out  of  the 
ground.  They  took  their  root  in  the  antique  and  in  the  best  which  had  been 
done  before  them.  Had  they  not  used  the  advantages  of  their  time  there 
would  be  little  to  say  about  them." — Gokthe,  Conversations  with  Ecl-eniiaitn, 
Jan.  4,  1827. 

"Among  the  deadliest  of  poetical  sins  is  imitation." — Carlyle,  Essay  on  the 
Stale  of  German  literature. 

SOMEWHERE  about  the  year  400  A.D.  a  great  educa- 
tional work  was  composed  by  the  scholar  Macrobius. 
He  gathered  up  all  that  he  considered  best  in  the 
current  criticism  of  Virgil,  and,  with  some  other  cognate 
matter  —  literary,  archaeological,  and  physiological  re- 
miniscences —  he  constructed  a  long  dialogue.  The 
:haracters  who  take  part  in  the  conversation  are  some  of 
:he  leading  men  in  the  pagan  society  of  the  time,  with  a 
few  scholars  and  savants,  and  in  particular  Servius.  The 
:ime  is  the  festival  of  the  Saturnalia,  from  which  the  book 
:akes  its  name,  and  the  scene  is  laid  from  day  to  day  in  the 
louses  of  Praetextatus,  Flavian,  and  Symmachus,  the  chief 
Dolitical  leaders  of  the  pagan  party.  A  large  part  of  the 
dialogue  is  given  up  to  the  criticism  of  Virgil,  but  we  might 
De  over-estimating  the  seriousness  of  Roman  society  at  the 
:ime  if  we  believed  that  the  guests  enjoyed  equally  the 
vhole  of  the  discussion.  The  scholar  Eustathius,  for 
example,  has  spoken  of  Virgil's  debt  to  Homer,  and 
\vianius  (the  father  of  Symmachus)  asks  him  to  continue 
md  enumerate  all  that  Virgil  has  borrowed ;  "  for  what 
:ould  be  more  delightful  than  to  hear  two  supreme  poets 
iaying  the  same  thing  ?  "  "  Give  me  a  copy  of  Virgil  then," 
lays  Eustathius,  "  because  as  I  go  from  passage  to  passage 

41      - 


42  VIRGIL 

I  shall  remember  Homer's  verses  more  easily."  The  book 
is  duly  fetched  by  a  slave,  and  Avianius  asks  the  learned 
scholar,  who  had  hoped  that  a  few  passages  would  suffice, 
not  to  pick  them  here  and  there,  but  "  to  begin  at  the 
beginning  and  go  steadily  through  the  book."^  This  is 
duly  done,  and  all  the  parallel  passages  are  written  out 
side  by  side  by  Macrobius.  Perhaps  it  was  hardly  necessary 
for  him  to  tell  us  in  his  preface  that  the  conversation  never 
actually  took  place,  but  that  he  groups  his  material  as  a 
dialogue  that  it  may  be  more  readily  grasped  and  digested. 

However,  Macrobius  hoped  that  this  collection  of  parallel 
passages  might  be  of  use,  and  he  followed  it  up  by  some 
criticism.  Here  Virgil  excelled  Homer ;  there  the  poets 
are  equal,  and  there  Homer  is  still  pre-eminent.  "  Here 
Virgil  is  slighter  {gracilior)  than  his  model,"  for  "  remark 
Homer's  swift  movement  without  loss  of  weight "  {vide 
fiimiam  celeritatein  salvo  pondere,  v.  13.  2).  Much  of  this 
work  upon  Virgil  was  inherited,  and  some  of  it  may  have 
come  down  from  Virgil's  own  day,  from  Perellius  Faustus 
who  "  collected  Virgil's  thefts,"  and  Q.  Octavius  Avitus,  who 
made  "eight  books  of  parallels  containing  the  borrowed 
verses  and  their  sources."  -  So  early  had  this  kind  of 
criticism  begun. 

But  Virgil  did  not  merely  borrow  lines  and  phrases  ;  he 
transferred  whole  episodes  from  Homer  to  the  Aeneid.  Let 
us  hear  Eustathius  again,  speaking  to  Symmachus  and  his 
friends.  "  And  more,  what  of  the  whole  of  Virgil's  work, 
modelled,  as  it  were,  from  a  sort  of  mirrored  reflection  of 
Homer's?  For  the  storm  is  described  with  marvellous 
imitation — let  any  one  who  wishes  compare  the  verses  of 
them   both  ^ — and  as   Venus  takes  the   place   of  Nausicaa, 

^  Macr.  Sat.  v.  3.  16  ;  4.  I.  On  the  Saturnalia  see  Comparetti,  Vergil  in  the 
Middle  Ages,  pp.  63  f. 

*  Suet.  V.  Verg.  44,  45.  It  is  interesting  that  the  same  kind  of  unintelligent 
and  anti-poetic  criticism  was  early  applied  to  Milton,  who  was  supposed  to  have 
plagiarized  from  authors  of  Pisander's  own  eminence.  See  Masson,  MiltorCs 
Poetical  Works,  vol.  ii.  §  4. 

^  I  would  recommend  any  one  who  accepts  Eustathius'  hint  to  go  to  Sainte- 
Beuve,  £.ttide  sur  Virgile,  pp.  209-16  (and  the  passages  before  and  after,  too), 
rather  than  to  Eustathius  himself,  if  he  wishes  to  make  a  real  comparison  of  the 
two  poets. 


w 


LITERARY  INFLUENCES  43 

daughter  of   Alcinous,  Dido    herself  recalls  the    picture   of 
King  Alcinous  presiding  over  his  banquet.     Scylla  too  and 
Charybdis  and  Circe  are  suitably  touched  on,  and  instead 
of  the  cattle  of  the  Sun  the  Strophades  islands  are  invented. 
Instead  of  the   consultation    of  the   dead    we   see    Aeneas 
descend  to  them  in  the  company  of  the  priestess.     Palinurus 
answers  to  Elpenor,  the  angry  Dido  to  the  angry  Ajax,  and 
the  admonition    of  Anchises    to    the   counsels    of  Tiresias. 
Then  the  battles   of  the   Iliad  and   the  description  of  the 
wounds    (done    with    perfection    of    learning),    the    double 
enumeration  of  allies,  the  making  of  the  arms,  the  variety 
of  the  funeral  games,  the    treaty  made  between   the  kings 
and  broken,  the  midnight  reconnoitring,  the   embassy  with 
a    refusal    from     Diomedes    (after    Achilles'    example),   the 
lamentation   over   Pallas  as  over   Patroclus,  the  altercation 
of  Drances  and  Turnus  drawn  after  that  between  A':amem- 
non  and  Achilles  (for  in  both  cases  one  thought  of  his  own, 
the  other  of  the  public,  good),  the  single  conflict  of  Aoneas 
and  Turnus  as  of  Achilles  and   Hector,  the   reservation  of 
captives  to  be  slain  at  the  burial "  ^ — here  I  may  anticipate 
Macrobius'    et  reliqua,  and    with  him    omit   to   supply    my 
sentence  with  a  verb.     There   is  nothing   here   that  is  not 
quite  obvious,  and  we  may  place  beside  this  another  example 
of  Virgil's  borrowing,  which   Macrobius  mentions  as  "  gen- 
erally known,"    *'  the   commonplace   of  schoolboys "  {pueris 
decantata).     For  Virgil,  he  says,  "  transcribed  the  fall  of  Troy 
with  his    Sino    and    the  wooden  horse,  and  all  the  rest  of 
the  second    book,    from  Pisander,    nearly   word    for   word." 
The    English  reader   may    not  remember   Pisander,  but  he 
"  is  eminent  among  Greek  poets   for  his  work,  which  begins 
with  the  marriage  of  Jupiter   and   Juno,  and  comprises  in 

1  Sat.  V.  2.  13-16.  There  is  in  Seneca,  Epistle  lo8,  24  ff.,  an  interesting 
passage  on  the  different  ways  in  which  grammarian  and  philosopher  would  read 
the  same  passage  of  Virgil.  The  grammarian  deinde  Ennianos coUigit  versus  (33), 
with  a  note  on  ancient  usage  ;  and  nGxtfeHcetii  deinde  se  putat,  quod  invenerit, 
unde  visum  sit  Vergilio  dicere  : 

quern  super  ingens 
porta  tonat  caeli  : 
EimiujH  hoc  ait  Homero  subripuisse.  Emtio  Vergilitim. 

Seneca  elsewhere  speaks  of  having  wasted  time  on  the  grammarians, 
Ep.  58,  5. 


44  VIRGIL 

one  continuous  story  the  whole  history  of  the  world  during 
the  intervening  centuries  down  to  Pisander's  own  age  ;  and 
it  makes  one  structure  out  of  all  the  gulfs  of  time,  and  in  it, 
among  other  stories,  the  fall  of  Troy  is  narrated  in  this  way, 
and  by  a  faithful  translation  Maro  has  devised  for  himself 
his  fall  of  the  Ilian  city."^ 

The  case  for  the  critics  who  enjoy  the  discovery  of 
parallel  passages  could  hardly  be  put  more  tersely  than 
Macrobius  has  here  stated  it,  but  the  allusion  to  Pisander 
betrays  the  real  value  of  criticism  by  parallel  passages.  For 
Macrobius  does  not  reject  the  popular  account  of  Virgil's  , 
debt  to  Pisander,  but,  for  the  time,  disregards  it  as  too  well 
known  to  need  further  discussion.  If  Virgil  took  the  outline 
of  his  story  of  Troy's  fall  from  Pisander  "  nearly  word  for 
word,"  and  so  many  episodes,  phrases,  and  verses  from  Homer 
in  the  same  wa^^ — if  these  statements  are  made  in  the  same 
breath,  it  would  seem  the  natural  conclusion  that  Virgil  is 
singularly  little  indebted  to  Homer.  Let  us  take  a  some- 
what similar  instance  of  literary  relations. 

Shakespeare's  debt  to  North's  translation  of  Plutarch's 
Lives  is  well  known.  Of  Julius  Caesar  Archbishop  Trench 
says,  "  it  is  scarcely  an  exaggeration  to  say  that  the  whole 
play  is  to  be  found  in  Plutarch.  ...  Of  the  incident  there  is 
almost  nothing  which  he  does  not  owe  to  Plutarch,  even  as 
continually  he  owes  the  very  wording  to  Sir  Thomas  North."  ^ 
He  follows  this  out  with  a  list  of  incidents  taken  from 
Plutarch's  Lives  of  Julius  Caesar,  of  Brutus  and  of  Antony. 
From  this  last  Life  the  play  of  Antony  and  Cleopatra  was 
drawn,  and  in  one  striking  example  Archbishop  Trench 
shows  how  Shakespeare  uses  at  once  the  fact  of  Plutarch  and 

^  Sat,  V.  2.  4,  5.  Shakespeare,  Voltaire  says,  only  turned  into  dialogue  the 
romance  of  Claudius,  Gertrude,  andHainlet,  written  in  full  by  Saxo  Grammaticus, 
"a qui  gloire  soit  rendue.'' — Appel  a  ioutes  les  nations,  1761  {CEttvres,  xl.  p.  263). 

On  Pisander  and  this  passage,  see  A.  Forstemann,  Aeneastnythus,  p.  6. 

2  Trench,  Plutarch  :  His  Life,  his  Parallel  Lives  and  His  Morals,  1874,  pp. 
66-74.  Stapfer,  Shakespeare  and  Classical  Antiquity  {Kr\^.  tr.)  p.  299,  suggests 
it  might  be  shorter  to  say  what  Shakespeare  had  added  or  altered  ;  he  has 
followed  Plutarch  more  closely  and  completely  in  Antony  a7id  Cleopatra  than  in 
the  other  plays  ;  but  in  all  "  Shakespeare,  who  usually  treated  the  sources  of  his 
materials  with  but  scant  courtesy,  showed  the  utmost  deference  and  submission 
towards  Plutarch." 


LITERARY  INFLUENCES  45 

the  words  of  North.^  When  the  soldiers  found  Cleopatra 
dead,  "  one  of  them  seeing  her  woman,  Charmion,  angrily 
said  unto  her :  '  Is  that  well  done,  Charmion  ? '  *  Very 
well,'  said  she  again,  '  and  meet  for  a  princess  descended 
from  the  race  of  so  many  noble  kings  : '  she  said  no  more, 
but  fell  down  dead  hard  by  the  bed."  So  Plutarch  and 
North:  and  Shakespeare  hardly  alters  it. 

First  Guard.     What  work  is  here  !     Charmian,  is  this  well 

done  ? 
Charmian,  It  is  well  done,  and  fitting  for  a  princess 

Descended  of  so  many  royal  kings. 

On  the  other  hand,  while  North  and  Plutarch  tell  how 
Antony  unfolded  the  robe  which  Caesar  wore  when  he  was 
murdered,  and  how  he  "  called  the  malefactors  cruel  and 
cursed  murtherers,"  Shakespeare  (as  the  necessities  of  drama 
required)  made  a  speech  for  Antony,  but  what  a  speech !  ^ 

Here,  then,  we  have  illustrations  in  Shakespeare  of  verbal 
indebtedness  and  indebtedness  for  incident.  How  far  are 
we  to  say  Shakespeare  is  "influenced  "  by  Plutarch,  or  "  under 
the  influence  "  of  Plutarch  ?  i\nd  in  the  same  way,  we  may 
ask  if  we  are  after  all  much  helped  to  a  real  judgement 
on  Virgil  by  the  information  that  he  took  such  and  such 
episodes,  passages,  lines  or  phrases  from  Homer  or  Pisander]' 
Was  his  mind  in  the  least  degree  influenced  by  Pisander  ? 
How  far  does  Homer  affect  his  mind  ? 

A  poet's  work  may  show  traces  of  the  influence  of  a 
predecessor  or  a  contemporary  either  in  matter,  or  in  style, 
or  in  spirit.  Probably,  so  far  as  matter  is  concerned,  a  poet 
may  borrow  with  the  utmost  freedom  without  impairing  his 
independence  or  originality.  Shakespeare  seems  never  to 
have  invented  a  plot.^  Style,  on  the  other  hand,  is  so  closely 
related  to  spirit,  that  if  a  poet  go  beyond  a  certain  point  in 

^  It  has  been  remarked  that  Shakespeare  follows  North  in  his  mistakes  in 
translation. 

*  Heine,  Letzte  Gedichte  und  Gedanken,  p.  230  "  Wie  Homer  nicht  allein  die 
Ilias  gemacht,  hat  auch  Shakespeare  nicht  allein  seine  Tragodien  geliefert — er 
gab  nur  den  Geist,  der  die  Vorarbeiten  beseelte." 

^  Barrett  Wendell,  The  Seventeenth  Century  in  English  Literature,  p.  36,  on 
Shakespeare's  "somewhat  sluggish  avoidance  of  needless  invention." 


46  VIRGIL 

reproducing  the  style  and  manner  of  another,  his  claim  to 
originality  will  be  open  to  dispute.^  For  when  we  come  to 
spirit,  we  are  on  safer  ground,  and  the  question  is  easier.  If 
a  poet  is  to  be  great  at  all,  his  spirit  will  be  his  own.  Others 
may,  and  will,  help  to  mould  him,  to  train  him  in  his  business 
of  seeing  the  world  and  of  interpreting  it  to  himself,  as  well 
as  in  the  other  part  of  his  work,  in  his  use  of  word  and 
rhythm  and  colour,  and  the  other  means  which  he  must 
employ  to  express  his  mind.  Such  and  so  much  influence  a 
multitude  of  masters  may  exercise  over  a  poet's  develop- 
ment, but  if  the  influence  of  any  of  them  goes  beyond 
quickening,  and  becomes  so  great  as  to  aff"ect  the  independ- 
ence of  the  poet's  outlook  on  life,  or  even,  we  may  probably 
add,  of  his  habitual  mode  of  expressing  himself,  then  we 
may  be  sure  at  once  that  we  are  dealing  with  a  mind  of  the 
second  order. 


Now  let  us  look  at  Virgil's  relation  to  Homer.  That 
Virgil  owes  much  of  his  matter  to  Homer  we  hardly  need 
Macrobius  to  tell  us.  His  hero  he  took  directly  from  the 
Iliad,  and  many  of  his  hero's  adventures  from  the  Odyssey, 
while  the  battle-pieces  of  his  last  six  books  he  modelled  as 
closely  as  he  could  after  Homer's  battles.  He  used  the  same 
metre  and  much  the  same  scale  of  length,  and  he  gave  to  his 
work  as  much  as  he  could  of  the  manner  and  movement  of 
the  Homeric  poem.  Yet  it  may  be  said  that  the  epic  of 
Quintus  of  Smyrna  stands  nearer  to  Homer  in  all  this  than 
does  the  Aeneid.  Writing  four  centuries  after  Virgil,  Quintus 
more  studiously  reproduces  the  matter  and  the  form  of 
Homer.  But  he  so  utterly  subordinates  himself  to  Homer 
that  in  the  end  he  is  infinitely  further  from  Homer.  For  the 
one  dominant  characteristic  of  Homer  is  life,  and  that  is  a 
quality  that  cannot  be  learnt  and  cannot  be  copied,  and  it  is 
this  quality  which  Quintus  entirely  lacks,  but  which  has  made 

^  "The  spirit  and  the  manner  of  an  author  are  terms  that  may,  I  think,  be  used 
conversely.  The  spirit  gives  birth  to  the  manner,  and  tlie  manner  is  an  indica- 
tion of  the  spirit."  Cowper  (on  Homer  and  Pope),  Southey's  Life  of  Cotvper, 
ii.  p.  197. 


LITERARY  INFLUENCES  47 

the  Aeneid  the  book  of  Western  Europe  for  centuries.  And 
what  is  true  of  Quintus  is  in  measure  true  of  Virgil — where 
in  form  and  matter  he  reminds  us  most  of  Homer,  there  his 
work  is  generally  least  living ;  it  has  lost  its  power  of  appeal. 

What  then  did  Homer  do  for  Virgil  ?  He  brought  him 
into  a  world  of  men,  where,  like  Odysseus,  he  might  see  the 
cities  of  many  and  learn  their  minds.  He  showed  him  the 
energies,  the  passions,  and  the  infinite  life  of  men  and  women 
in  a  larger  air  and  on  a  grander  and  simpler  scale  than  he 
could  find  it  elsewhere,  in  art  or  in  what  people  call  real  life. 
He  showed  him  a  broad,  wide  world,  a  world  of  battle  and 
seafaring,  of  city  and  forest,  where  warrior,  sailor,  counsellor, 
fisherman,  shepherd,  all  pursue  their  task  with  that  keenness 
of  interest,  that  calm  in  the  face  of  danger  and  obstacle,  and 
that  fundamental  content  which  a  great  poet  can  see,  where 
a  lesser  finds  only  failure  and  despair,  broken  hopes  and 
bafiled  endeavours.  The  minor  poets — the  people  whom 
Goethe  calls  "  the  Lazaretto  poets  " — are  overcome  by  the 
sense  of  man's  failure,  but  Homer's  note  is  different.  In  him, 
man  triumphs  over  the  world  because  he  can  and  will  look 
it  full  in  the  face  and  find  in  the  human  spirit  something  to 
overcome  the  world.  There  is  probably  no  passage  in  Homer 
better  fitted  to  illustrate  this  than  Sarpedon's  speech  to 
Glaucus : — 

"  Friend  of  my  soul,  were  it  that,  if  we  two  were  once 
escaped  from  this  war,  we  should  live  for  ever  without  old  age 
or  death,  I  should  not  fight  myself  among  the  foremost,  nor 
would  I  send  thee  into  the  battle  that  gives  men  glory ;  but, 
for  fates  of  death  stand  over  us,  aye !  ten  thousand,  which 
mortal  man  may  not  flee  from  nor  escape,  let  us  go  on,  and 
give  glory  to  another  or  win  it  ourselves."^ 

Nor  can  Homer's  language  have  been  without  its  eft"ect  on 
Virgil's  spirit.  Here  is  a  poet  (Virgil  lived  long  before  Wolf, 
and  we  may  for  the  present  use  the  name  "  Homer,"  as  Virgil 
did,  without  reference  to  the  question  of  the  single  or  divided 
origin  of  the  Homeric  poems) — a  poet,  who,  to  quote  Matthew 
Arnold,  "  expressed  himself  like  a  man  of  adult  reason,"  who 

^  Iliad  xii.  322-8.     The  reader  may  be  reminded  of  Matthew  Arnold's  discus- 
sion of  this  passage  in  his  book  {On  T^-anslating  Homer). 


48  VIRGIL 

"has  actually  an  affinity  with  Voltaire  in  the  unrivalled 
clearness  and  straightforwardness  of  his  thinking  ;  in  the  way 
in  which  he  keeps  to  one  thought  at  a  time,  and  puts  that 
thought  forth  in  its  complete  natural  plainness."  i  Now 
Virgil's  earlier  interest  in  poetry  had  been  directed  to  the 
writers  of  Alexandria,  and  it  was  probably  comparatively 
late  in  life  that  he  really  found  Homer.  From  the  first  his 
Roman  sense  and  feeling  had  saved  him  from  extreme 
Alexandrinism,  and  led  him  to  leave  Callimachus  and 
Euphorion  to  Propertius  and  Gallus.  The  earnestness  and 
passion  of  Lucretius  helped  him  (if  he  needed  help)  to  refuse 
that  diction,  which,  though  beloved  of  scholars,  was  neither 
earnest  nor  passionate.  Then  turning,  a  matured  man,  to 
the  closer  study  of  Homer,  he  found  another  language, 
"direct,  simple,  passionate,  and  noble." 

To  say  that  Virgil  could  not  have  written  such  a  language 
himself,  without  Homer's  example,  would  be  absurd.  Yet 
there  can  hardly  be  no  significance  in  the  fact  that  the 
Latin  poet,  who  gave  to  Homer  a  closer  and  a  more  sym- 
pathetic study  than  any  man  of  his  day,  is  also  the  one 
among  Latin  poets  who,  in  spite  of  all  the  differences 
and  developments  due  to  the  growth  of  the  world's  mind 
in  the  centuries  between,  yet  resembles  Homer  most  closely 
in  breadth  of  view,  in  keenness  of  interest,  in  manhood, 
in  the  sympathy  with  which  he  looks  upon  man  and  man's 
life,  and  in  the  simplicity,  passion,  and  grandeur  of  his 
language. 

But  we  cannot  leave  the  matter  here,  for  we  have  to 
recognize  a  great  difference  between  the  two  poets.  Virgil 
has  the  poet's  eye  for  human  life,  but  he  does  not  see  it 
with  Homer's  freshness.  It  is  partly  because  Homer  has 
done  or  watched  the  things  about  which  he  writes,  while 
Virgil  has  read  about  them  in  books  and  pictured  them 
with  "  the  inner  eye."  Sainte-Beuve  finds  an  excellent 
illustration  of  this  detachment  from  the  heroic  age  in  the 
elaborate  account  of  fire-lighting  in  the  first  Aeneid?  To 
Homer  the  operation  is  too  obvious  to  need  description ;  for 

^  On  Translating  Home)-  (1896  edition),  pp.  26,  27. 
*  £tude  sur  Virgile,  p.  239;  Aen.  i.  174-6. 


LITERARY  INFLUENCES  49 

Virgil   it  was  a  little  away  from   ordinary  experience,   far 
enough  to  quicken  interest. 

The  most  patent  illustration,  however,  of  the  divergence 
between  the  Homeric  and  the  Virgilian  point  of  view  is  to 
be  found   in  the  descriptions  of  battle.     On  this  point  we 
may   call   a   witness   who,    whatever   his   qualifications    for 
literary  criticism,  at  least  understood  war.     Napoleon   one 
day   took   the    fancy   to   examine  the  second  Aeneid,  and 
he  announced  his  conclusion  peremptorily  that  in  all   that 
concerns  the  military  operations  it  is  absurd  from  one  end 
to  the  other.     Homer,  he  said,  was  a  man  who  knew  where 
he  stood,  who  had  made  war ;  "  the  journal  of  Agamemnon 
could  not  be  more  exact  as  to  distances  and  time,  and  in 
the  life-like  character  of  the  military  operations,  than  is  the 
Iliad.'' '^     Virgil  was  "nothing  but  a  regent  of  a  college,  who 
had  never  gone  outside  his  doors,  and  did  not  know  what 
an  army  was."     It  may  be  urged,  on  the  other  hand,  that 
if  Virgil  had  not  made  war  he  had  some  notions  about  it, 
for  he  alludes  to  modern  operations  which  Homer's  day  did 
not  know.     He  allows  the  Rutulians  to  assail  Aeneas'  camp 
with  the  formation  known  as  the  testudo,-  and  this  without 
further  remark.     Quintus  of  Smyrna  employs  it  too,  but  he 
makes  it  appear  as  a  happy  thought  of  the  moment,  the 
suggestion,   of  course,   of  Odysseus.^     Virgil,  again,  in   the 
eleventh  book,  sets   Aeneas  to  attack   Laurentum,  and   he 
tries  to  do  it  by  a  "  turning  movement."  *     Still,  there  can  be 
little  doubt  that  Napoleon  is  right.     Virgil  had  not  made 

^  See  Sainte-Beuve,  Etude,  p.  238;  Pierron,  La  Lit.  romaine,  p.  401,  Cf. 
Paul-Louis  Courier  (writing  from  Barletta,  March  8,  1805):  "Do  not  think 
I  am  losing  my  time ;  I  am  studying  here  better  than  ever  I  did,  from 
morning  to  night,  after  Homer's  fashion,  who  had  no  books  at  all.  He 
studied  men ;  one  sees  them  nowhere  as  one  does  here.  Homer  made  war  • 
do  not  doubt  it.  It  was  savage  war.  He  was  aide-de-camp,  I  dare  say,  to 
Agamemnon,  or,  very  likely,  his  secretary.  Nor  would  Thucydides  either 
have  had  so  true  and  so  profound  an  understanding — that  is  not  to  be  learnt 
in  the  schools.  Compare,  I  beg  of  you,  Sallust  and  Livy — the  one  talks  pure 
gold  {park  d'or),  nobody  could  speak  better;  the  other  knows  of  what  he 
talks.  And  who  shall  hinder  me  some  day  .  .  .  ?  Why  should  I  not  make 
some  pictures,  in  which  might  be  found  some  air  of  that  naive  truth  which 
we  find  so  charming  in  Xenophon?     I  am  telling  you  my  dreams." 

*  ix.  505  f.  '  Fosthomcrica,  xi.  358. 

*  Boissier,  Nouvtlles  Promenades,  p.  340  (Engl.  tr.  p.  317). 


50  VIRGIL 

war,  and  his  pictures  of  it  are  drawn  from  what  he  had 
read  in  books — and  with  a  certain  reluctance,  even  with 
pain.  His  only  experience  of  it  brought  home  to  him  its 
sufferings,  not  its  exhilaration. 

When  Homer  is  busy  with  a  battle,  he  is  absorbed  in  it ; 
he  thinks  of  it  all  the  time  and  of  nothing  else ;  he  feels  the 
exhilaration  of  it,  the  earnest  satisfaction,  the  joy  of  action 
and  achievement ;  he  deals  every  blow  he  describes,  and 
exults  whenever  the  blow  does  its  work.  But  Virgil  draws 
battle-scenes,  not  at  all  because  he  loves  them,  but  because 
he  must  draw  them.  He  feels  every  blow  that  is  dealt, 
thinks  of  everything  it  involves,  looks  away  from  the  battle 
to  untilled  fields — 

squalent  abductis  rura  colonis^  {G.  i.  507); 

to  funeral  pyres  and  nameless  graves — 

cetera  confusaeque  ingentem  caedis  acervum 
nee  numero  nee  honore  cremant^  {A.  xi.  207) ; 

to  lonely  parents  at  their  prayers — 

et  nunc  ille  quidem  spe  multum  captus  inani 

fors  et  vota  facit  cumulatque  altaria  donis  ^  {A.  xi.  49). 

The  result  of  this  is  that  Virgil  falls  far  short  of  Homer  in 
expressing  "  the  stern  joy  that  warriors  feel."  If  the  war 
spirit  is  to  be  depicted,  Virgil's  is  hardly  the  way  in  which 
it  will  be  done.  If  we  are  to  go  through  a  battle  in 
earnest,  whether  in  real  life  or  in  literature,  we  shall  hardly 
manage  it  if  we  take  Virgil's  spirit  into  it.  It  will  cost  us 
too  much.  We  need  not  perhaps  deplore  Virgil's  failure  to 
give  us  the  enthusiasm  of  war,  as  the  world  has  heard  at 
least  enough  of  the  poetry  of  drum  and  trumpet. 

^  "The  tiller  is  swept  off  and  the  land  left  to  weeds"  (Conington). 

*  "The  rest,  a  vast  heap  of  undistinguishable  slaughter,  they  burn  uncounted 
and  unhonoured  "  (Mackail).  Confusae  is  the  pathetic  word  here.  All  these 
dead  bodies  were  once  individual  breathing  men,  and  now — .  Compare  the  grim 
effect  of  the  adverb  in  Thucydides'  account  of  what  the  Corcyreans  did  with  the 
murdered  oligarchs  (iv.  48.  4) :  koL  avroi/s  ol  KepKvpaToi,  iTreidi]  ij/j.^pa.  eyivero, 
<popiJ.r]dbv  (cross-wise,  two  over  two)  eirl  d/xdfas  eTrLJSaXovTes  dTrrjyayov  e^w  ttJs 
ir6\e«s. 

^  "  And  now  he  belike  at  this  very  moment  in  the  deep  delusion  of  empty  hope 
is  making  vows  to  Heaven,  and  piling  the  altars  with  gifts  "  (Conington). 


LITERARY  INFLUENCES  51 

But  this  difference  between  Homer  and  Virgil  is  but  one 
phase  of  a  deeper  contrast  in  mind  and  outlook.  For  the 
same  detachment  from  the  immediate  concern  which  we  feel 
in  Virgil's  battle-scenes  is  to  be  felt  more  or  less  in  all  his 
work.  He  looks  before  and  after,  sees  this  and  that,  weighs 
things  and  ponders  them,  and  when  he  comes  to  present 
either  temper  or  action  he  is  apt  to  be  disconcerted  by 
the  multitude  of  his  reflections.  He  looks  at  his  object, 
but  he  looks  beyond  it,  and  there  is  something  in  his 
description  which  tells  us  he  is  dreaming.  There  is  apt 
to  be  vagueness  in  his  characters  and  halting  in  their 
actions. 

The  same  criticism  has  to  be  made  of  Virgil's  verse  as 
contrasted  with  Homer's,  With  each  his  verse  answers  to 
the  picture  in  his  mind.  Homer's  verse  Matthew  Arnold 
pronounced  to  be  direct,  rapid,  and  simple,  and  at  the  same 
time  noble  and  "  in  the  grand  style."  Now  Virgil's  is  also 
noble  and  in  the  grand  style,  but  it  is  not  always  direct 
or  simple.  He  perhaps  felt  this  himself,  for  we  are  told 
that  he  said  himself  of  his  verses  that  he  had  to  lick  them 
into  shape  as  a  bear  might  its  cubs.  He  would  write  a 
number  of  lines,  then  spend  the  rest  of  the  day  in  polish- 
ing, reshaping,  and  reducing  them.^  The  verses  not  un- 
frequently  bear  witness  to  this  process,  at  once  in  their 
wealth  of  suggested  meanings  and  in  their  bewildering 
constructions.^  Virgil  can  write  as  simply  and  directly 
as  any  man — 

nudus  in  ignota  Palinure  iacebis  arena'  (A.  v.  871), 

but,  to  take  one  of  his  most  wonderful  lines,  what  does  he 
mean  by  his 

sunt  lacrimae  rerum  et  mentem  mortalia  tangunt(yi.  i.  462)? 

What  does  he  not  mean?  It  is  quite  easy  to  find  a  meaning 
for  this  line,  but  which  is  i/ie  meaning  ?  Or  are  we  to  say 
that  all  the  meanings  are  not  merely  to  be  found  in  the 

^  Suet.  V.  Verg.  22  Cum  Georgica  scriberet  traditur  cotidie  mediiatos  wane 
plurimos  versus  dictare  solitiis,  ac  per  totum  dietn  retractando  ad  paucissimos 
redigere,  non  absurde  carmen  se  ursae  more  parere  dicens  et  lambendo  demum 
effingere.     So  Gellius,  N.  A.  xvii.  10. 

*  "  Naked  on  an  unknown  shore,  Palinurus,  Thou  must  lie." 


52  VIRGIL 

line,  but  were  actually  considered  by  Virgil  ?  Professor 
Conington,  at  all  events,  who  understood  Virgil  better  than 
most  commentators,  says  somewhere  that  with  Virgil  it  is 
far  less  rash  to  suppose  he  realized  any  possible  meaning 
for  a  line  or  a  passage  than  that  he  did  not.  It  is  not  at 
all  that  Virgil  is  obscure  as  Propertius  and  Lucan  are  in 
their  several  ways,  for  his  obscurity  is  one  that  does  not 
impress  the  reader  at  first.  With  those  poets  a  little 
patience  and  a  knowledge  of  mythology  will  often  reveal 
the  fact  that  the  riddle  is  only  a  piece  of  vacuous  pedantry 
or  a  half-finished  epigram.  But  Virgil  has  his  own  Sibyl's 
habit — obsairis  vera  involvens'^  (vi.  lOo) — and  his  difficulty  is 
due  to  excess  rather  than  defect  of  meaning,  to  his  seeing 
and  trying  to  say  several  things  at  once.^ 
X 

II 

From  Homer  we  pass  to  the  Attic  dramatists.  Virgil 
tells  us  of  his  interest  in  them  in  a  way  that  has  em- 
barrassed critics,  Agameinnonius  scaenis  agitatus  Orestes^ 
{A.  iv.  471)  is  a  clear  reference  to  Greek  drama,  and  it  is 
coupled  with  another  to  Euripides'  play,  the  Bacchae.  We 
need  not  now  discuss  the  appropriateness  of  this  allusion  to 
the  actual  stage ;  it  is  enough  that  we  have  Virgil  confessing 
to  his  tastes  in  literature,  as  he  did  when  Silenus  borrowed 
his  song  from  Lucertius. 

It  is  easy  to  find  in  Virgil  suggestions  taken  from  the 
Greek  dramatists — phrases  and  thoughts.*  Indeed,  we  can 
go  further  and  rank  the  dramatists  with  Homer  as  his  great 

1  "  Robing  her  truth  in  darkness  "  (Conington). 

*  It  is  here  that  William  Morris  seems  to  me  to  fail  as  a  translator  of  Virgil. 
His  bent  is  toward  narrative  somewhat  in  the  style  of  Chaucer  (though  much 
more  mannered),  and  where  Virgil  is  bewilderingly  rich  in  suggestion,  Morris  is 
apt  to  be  swift  and  simple. 

3  "  Agamemnon's  Orestes  rushing  over  the  stage  "  (Conington). 

*  For  example,  striking  parallels  have  been  remarked  between  the  Aeneid  and 
Sophocles'  Ajax.     Two  may  suffice — 

Dido  killed  herself  with  Aeneas'  sword,  fion  hos  qnacsittim  munus  in  tisus 
(iv.  647),  as  Ajax  fell  upon  Hector's  sword,  Ajax  661  tovt  ede^dfirjv  irap  "YiKTOpos 
ddiprj/j-a  5v(Tixeve<TTaT0v  :  and  the  famous  lines,  disce  puer  virtiitetn  ex  vie  ve?-u/>ique 
laborem,  fortiinam  ex  aliis  (xii.  435),  point  to  Ajax  550  &  iraT,  yeyoLo  irarpdi 
evTVX^o'Tepos,  to.  5'  aW  6/j.oi.os. 


LITERARY  INFLUENCES  53 

authorities  on  that  old  world,  the  story  of  which  Virgil  made 
his  theme.  "  It  is  perfectly  clear,"  writes  Dr  Henry,  "  from 
the  story  of  Polydorus  with  which  Virgil  begins,  and  from 
the  story  of  Polyphemus  with  which  he  closes,  the  third 
book  of  his  Aeneid — both  of  them  told  almost  without  a 
single  variation  in  Euripides'  own  words — that  Euripides 
was  seldom  absent  from  before  Virgil's  eyes  while  he  was 
engaged  in  writing  this  part  of  his  Aeneid."  The  narrative 
of  Troy's  fall  has  clear  affinity  with  the  Troades  and  Hecuba, 
in  each  of  which  are  choral  odes  of  deep  feeling,  beauty,  and 
simplicity,  telling  from  a  captive  woman's  point  of  view  the 
awful  impressions  of  that  night  of  surprise  and  bloodshed. 
Lastly,  the  story  of  Dido  owes  much  in  its  conception  to  the 
Hippolytus  and  the  Medea. 

There  is  perhaps  a  closer  bond  of  union  between  Virgil 
and  Euripides  than  linked  him  to  any  other  author.^  Mr 
Murray  emphasizes  the  sympathy  of  Euripides  with  the 
dumb  and  uninterpreted.  The  poet  of  the  dispossessed,  of 
the  old  Cilician,  of  weary  ox  and  energetic  bee,  of  the  hard- 
worked  labourer,  and  of  all  the  obscure  people,  much-tried 
and  much-bereaved,  of  whom  we  never  long  lose  sight  in  the 
Aeneid — how  could  he  help  being  drawn  to  "our  Euripides 
the  human  "?  But  of  all  things  the  poets  most  resemble  one 
another  in  their  horror  of  war.-  The  one  saw  twenty  years 
of  the  Peloponnesian  war,  the  other  saw  the  two  great  civil 
wars  of  Rome.  Both  had  to  witness  bloodshed  and  brutality, 
the  anguish  of  the  victim,  the  coarsening  of  the  soldier,  ruin 
to  city  and  country,  the  decline  of  ideals  and  the  disappear- 
ance of  the  political  virtues.  Sensibility  was  natural  to 
them  both,  and  sore  experience  developed  it ;  and  with  eyes 
opened  by  his  own  bitter  lesson  Virgil  read  Euripides  for 
himself.  In  one  way  and  another  Euripides  had  long  been 
a  favourite  with  the  Romans.  From  Ennius  to  Seneca  they 
translated  and  imitated  his  plays.  Lucretius  took  from  him 
his  Iphigenia,  and  found  in  him  his  own  moral  anticipated — 
tantum  religio  potuit  suadere  malorum.^ 

*  Euripides  was  also  Milton's  favourite  among  the  Greek  tragic  poets.      Cf. 
Courthope,  Hist.  English  Poetry,  iii.  p.  448. 

*  Cf.  W.  Nestle,  Euripides  der  Dichter  der  Griechischen  Aufkldrung,  p.  309. 
'  "  So  much  of  evil  could  religion  teach." 


54  VIRGIL 

But  Virgil  found  in  him  the  story  of  his  own  life,  his  own 
thoughts  and  sorrows.  Very  different  men  they  were,  the 
one  as  markedly  Greek  as  the  other  was  Roman — one  the 
citizen  of  the  keenest-witted  of  all  Greek  cities,  the  other 
the  child  of  an  Italian  farm — wide  apart  in  outlook  ^  and  in 
philosophy,  wider  still  in  theology.  But  the  two  stand  out 
together  as  the  great  exponents  in  the  Greek  and  Latin 
world  of  sorrow  and  suffering  in  general,  and  the  misery  of 
war  in  particular.  There  is  nothing  in  classical  literature  to 
match  the  Troades  outside  the  Aeneid.  If  Euripides  is  "the 
most  tragic  "  ^  of  Greek  poets,  there  is  more  tragedy  in  the 
Aeneid  than  in  all  the  rest  of  the  Latin  literature  we  know. 

To  many  readers  the  story  of  Dido  is  the  chief  interest 
of  the  Aeneid,  and  that  story  presupposes  the  Greek  drama, 
and  above  all  Euripides.  Here,  as  in  a  tragedy,  everything 
centres  in  the  conflict  of  character  and  the  coincident 
conflict  of  destiny.  Our  attention  is  directed  to  a  man 
and  woman,  whose  story  unfolds  itself  in  a  simple  and 
spontaneous  way  till  it  ends  in  betrayal,  despair,  and  death. 
As  we  study  it,  we  realize  that  this  double  conflict  of 
destiny  and  character  has  a  universal  significance,  that  it 
goes  beyond  the  actual  history  of  Aeneas  and  Dido,  beyond 
the  story  of  Rome  and  Carthage,  and  that  it  represents 
the  abiding  riddle  of  our  life.  We  see  the  unfolding  of  a 
woman's  character ;  we  see  how  what  is  best  in  her  gives 
its  opportunity  to  what  is  worst,  her  capacity  for  love 
leading  her  astray  ;  we  see  the  triumph  of  her  love  become 
her  ruin.  Behind  all  this  we  see  some  dark,  divine  power 
forwarding  a  design,  for  which  we  find  it  hard  to  see  an 
adequate  reason,  and  yet  for  which  the  instinct  and  passion 
of  a  human  creature  are  sacrificed,  a  life  is  crushed,  and 
crushed  by  no  strange  or  unseen  agency  of  Fate,  but  by  the 
act  of  one  beloved.  What  does  it  mean  ?  What  evil  has 
she  done  ?     What  evil  have  the  countless  sufferers  done,  out 

1  Perhaps  as  great  a  contrast  as  any  is  that  hetween  Virgil's  profound  recogni- 
tion of  the  significance  of  the  State  and  that  practical  repudiation  of  State  and 
statecraft  and  statesmen  which  recurs  in  the  plays  of  Euripides  and  reminds  the 
modern  reader  of  Tolstoy  and  in  a  minor  degree  of  Thoreau. 

*  Aristotle,  Poetics  13,  6.  "  A  master  of  emotional  effect "  is  Professor  Bywater's 
paraphrase. 


LITERARY  INFLUENCES  55 

of  whose  suffering,  out  of  whose  inexph'cable  suffering,  has 
grown  the  world  we  know  ?  What  has  Hecuba  done  that 
she  should  suffer  as  she  does  in  the  Troades  ?  What  is 
Phaedra's  sin  that  Aphrodite  should  make  a  victim  of  her  ? 
Why  is  heaven  so  reckless  of  human  sorrow,  most  careless  of 
the  keenest  anguish  ? 

Such  questions  are  felt  in  Homer,  but  it  is  the  dramatists 
who  give  them  their  fullest  expression  in  Greek  literature. 
And  it  is  their  presence  in  Virgil  that  explains  or  helps  to 
explain  the  difference  between  his  epic  and  Homer's. 
M.  Patin,  in  emphasizing  this  influence  of  the  Greek 
dramatists  upon  the  genius  of  Virgil,  adds  a  caution  which 
we  shall  do  well  not  to  forget — they  formed  his  genius  indeed, 
but  it  was  ''  with  nature's  aid."  ^ 


ni 

It  is  a  matter  of  common  knowledge  that,  beside  the 
Greek  dramatists,  another  notable  school  of  Greek  poets  has 
had  a  share  in  shaping  Virgil — the  school  of  Alexandria.^ 
They  were  learned  people,  too  learned  for  human  beings, 
but  in  one  point  they  touched  life,  though  remotely.  In 
their  pedantic  way  they  were  interested  in  love,  and  they 
told  tales  of  passion.  In  particular,  Apollonius  of  Rhodes 
had  told  of  the  love  of  Jason  and  Medea,  and  Virgil  studied 
him  closely.  But  here,  as  everywhere,  he  remained 
independent,  still  his  own  master.  He  will  not  be  led 
into  the  side-paths  of  passion  beloved  of  other  Alexandrines, 
and  he  will  use,  but  not  follow,  Apollonius  of  Rhodes. 

M.  de  la  Ville  de  Mirmont,  in  his  very  thorough  if  rather 

^  Patin,  Euripide,  vol.  i.  ch.  xii.  p.  395  "  Virgile  ne  s'occupe  pas  laborieuse- 
ment  de  s'approprier  par  I'artifice  de  rimitation  telle  pensee,  telle  image, 
tel  vers  du  poete  grec.  C'est  son  esprit  qu'il  lui  derolje,  et  en  louant  chez  lui 
ces  traits  d'une  tristesse  m^lancolique  que  lui  inspire  le  spectacle  de  la  grandeur 
dechue,  de  I'esclavage,  de  I'exil — cette  expression  dont  la  verite  penetrante  n'est 
jamais  alteree  par  la  grace,  I'elegance,  I'elevation  du  langage — il  est  juste  de 
reporter  une  part  de  cet  eloge  aux  modeles  de  la  Grece,  qui,  avec  la  nature, 
avaienl  forme  son  genie."     I  have  italicized  the  words  avec  la  nature. 

*  Goumy,  Les  Latins,  p.  52;  "  L'avenement  de  I'alexandrinisme,  cette  puis- 
sance nouvelle,  faite  de  deux  elements  malsains,  le  p^dantisme  et  le  mysticisme, 
semble  avoir  brusquement  dessechc  et  tari  la  veine  comique  du  g^nie  grec." 


56  VIRGIL 

long  book  on  Virgil  and  Apollonius,^  has  made  an  elaborate 
comparison  of  these  two  poets,  and  his  results  are  very 
instructive.  Virgil  has  borrowed  his  episodes,  not  merely 
from  Homer  but  ^also  from  the  Argonautica,  but  he  has 
borrowed  with  great  caution.  He  rejects  as  unsuitable  to 
his  work,  as  "too  peregrinate,"  the  enormous  learning  of 
the  Alexandrian  poem,  its  obscure  legends,  its  cosmogony 
and  its  remoter  gods.  He  was  no  Propertius,  and  he  knew 
that  death  is  the  inevitable  offspring  of  pedantry  in  a  work 
of  art.  It  :is  a  somewhat  external  judgement  to  say  that 
he  knew  that  Alexandrine  erudition  would  be  unpopular 
with  the  untutored  Roman,  as  if  he  needed  a  monitor  from 
without  and  did  not  know  in  himself  that  mere  learning 
touches  no  spirit,  and  "  makes  no  heart  beat."  ^  Yet  the 
feeling  of  the  unlearned  Roman  might  not  after  all  have 
been  a  bad  criterion.  Tertullian  in  a  later  day  waved  aside 
the  philosopher,  and  made  a  bold  appeal  for  his  faith  to  the 
witness  of  the  unsophisticated  soul  of  man  to  God,  the 
testimonium  animae  naturaliter  Christianae?  Virgil  simi- 
larly, we  may  say,  looks  past  the  pedants  to  the  warm 
hearts,  and  even  if  he  can  please  the  pedants  with  his 
scrupulous  care  about  ritual,  he  lives  in  virtue  of  Dido  ex- 
stinctani  ferroque  extreina  secutavi  and  ipsiiis  umbra  CreusaeJ^ 
Sainte-Beuve,  in  his  very  suggestive  lectures  on  the  first 
book  of  the  Aeneid,  deals  with  another  side  of  Virgil's 
relations  with  Apollonius.^  He  makes  a  text  of  the  episode 
of  Venus  substituting  Cupid  for  Ascanius.  This  is  more 
or  less  modelled  after  a  passage  at  the  beginning  of  the 
third  book  of  the  Argonautica.  There  Hera  and  Athene 
visit  Aphrodite  to  ask  her  aid  in  making  Medea  fall  in 
love  with  Jason.  They  find  her  "sitting  on  a  rounded 
chair,  fronting  the  door ;  and  both  her  white  shoulders 
were    clad    with    her    hair,    which    she   was    combing   with 

^  Ap.  de  Rhodes  et  Virgile,  Faris,  1894.  See  especially  pp.  15,  76,  245-7, 
518,  732. 

*  Sainte-Beuve,  Etude  stir  Virgile,  p.  80. 

^  Tertullian,  Apologeticum,  17,  and  de  Testimonio  Animae. 

*  "  Dead — and  the  sword  had  done  it  sworst "  ;  "  the  shade  of  Creusa  herself" 
— passages  cited  with  feeling  by  St  Augustine,  Confessions,  i.  13,  21  and  22  {Aen. 
vi.  457,  and  ii.  727).  ^  ^tude  stir  Virgile,  p.  278. 


LITERARY  INFLUENCES  57 

a  golden  comb,  and  making  ready  to  plait  in  long  braids." 
She  rose  to  meet  them  and  give  them  seats;  sat  down 
"  and  with  her  hands  bound  up  her  locks  uncombed  ;  and 
then  with  a  smile  bespoke  them  with  winsome  words " 
(iii.  44-51).  When  they  ask  her  to  bid  Eros  inspire  Medea 
with  love  for  Jason,  she  professes  that  she  finds  him  hard 
to  rule ;  she  has  been  quite  angry  with  him  and  wanted 
to  break  his  arrows  ;  "  for  he  threatened  me  in  rage  that 
if  I  did  not  keep  my  hands  from  him,  while  his  spirit 
was  still  under  control,  thereafter  I  should  have  but  myself 
to  blame"  (iii.  95-9).  However,  she  agrees  to  approach 
Eros,  and  she  finds  him  dicing  with  Ganymede.  She 
promises  him,  if  he  will  do  what  she  asks,  a  golden  ball 
made  by  Adrasteia  for  Zeus,  when  Zeus  was  a  child  in  the 
cave  of  Ida,  "  and  not  from  the  hands  of  Hephaistos  wilt 
thou  ever  have  a  better  toy"  (iii.  135). 

Now  Virgil  had  read  this  whole  passage,  for  he  knew  the 
third  book  of  the  Argonautica  well,  and  he  used  it,  but  all 
this  detail  he  entirely  discarded.  Venus  in  the  Aeneid 
calls  Cupid  to  her  aid  against  Dido,  but  she  offers  him  no 
bribe,  for  he  is  not  the  spoilt  child  of  a  sultan,  but  a  young 
god  with  a  suggestion  of  the  Roman  about  him — something 
like  the  young  Romans  in  the  story,  who  attended  the 
senate's  meetings  but  said  never  a  word  outside,  as  if 
"  Fortune,  among  her  other  bounties "  (to  quote  Polybius), 
"granted  the  Romans  the  privilege  of  being  men  of  the 
world  from  their  cradles."  ^  Yet  it  is  not  merely  that 
Cupid  is  a  shrewd  young  Roman  and  Eros  a  child  of  the 
Ptolem.ies.  There  lies  behind  this  divergence  something 
more  important.  Virgil  held  a  more  serious  view  of  poetry 
than  ApoUonius.  It  is  with  him  "a  high  and  philosophic 
thing  tending  to  express  the  universal."  ^  Nothing  is  trivial 
to  him  if  it  is  really  relevant.  He  can  find  the  universal, 
for  instance,  in  the  fading  flower  a  girl  has  picked — 

virgineo  demessum  pollice  florem  {^A.  xi.  ^'^^', 

but  ApoUonius'  adornments,  external  and  irrelevant,  are  a 
betrayal  of  art.     ApoUonius  introduces  these  things  into  his 

^  Polybius,  iii.  20.  ^  Ar.  Poet.  9.  3. 


58  VIRGIL  I 

poem ;  he  does  not  find  them  there.  They  are  pictures, 
every  one  of  them — and  pretty  pictures  ;  Aphrodite  combing 
her  hair,  Aphrodite  breaking  Eros'  arrows,  Eros  playing  with 
Ganymede  at  dice,  Aphrodite  giving  Eros  a  ball — all  of  these 
are  of  the  type  which  Alexandrian  painters  loved  to  paint,^ 
but  they  have  nothing  to  do  with  Jason  and  Medea.  They 
are  introduced  to  bribe  the  reader,  as  pictures  are  put  into  a 
child's  reading-book.  And  they  are  trivial,  in  Ovid's  style 
at  best,  and  not  very  far  from  Lucian's  Dialogues  of  the  Gods. 
Irrelevant  and  trivial,  a  surrender  of  the  true  ideal  of  poetry, 
Alexandria  loved  them  and  Virgil  refused  them.  What  a 
poet  rejects  is  as  significant  as  what  he  chooses.^ 

IV 

From  the  Greek  poets,  whom  Virgil  used,  Macrobius  turns 
to  the  Latin,  and  cites  side  by  side  the  verses  which  Virgil 
borrowed,  and  the  sources  from  which  he  took  them.  The 
two  most  important  names  are  Ennius  and  Lucretius. 
To  these  we  may  add  Catullus,  and  consider  more  generally 
how  they  contributed  to  Virgil.  We  may  dismiss  for  the 
present  Macrobius'  method  and  try  that  of  M.  Patin. 

"  There  is,"  he  says,  "  for  a  literature  a  moment,  slow  to 
come  and  swift  to  pass,  when  the  language,  polished  and 
made  pliant  by  use,  lends  itself  to  the  most  vivid  and  most 
exact  expression  of  conceptions,  which  have  themselves 
been  developed  by  the  long  labour  of  genius.  It  was  thus 
with  Latin  literature,  when  from  that  branch,  long  since 
severed  from  the  old  Homeric  trunk,  which  two  centuries 
of  culture  had  accustomed  to  the  sky  and  soil  of  Latium, 
Virgil  and  Horace  came  to  gather  the  fruits  of  poetry, 
mature  at   last.     All  that   the  epic  poetry  of  Naevius   and 

^  See  Boissier,  Rome  et  Pompdi,  ch.  vi.  §  3  ;  Mahaffy,  Greek  Life  and  Thought, 
p.  272. 

'  Cf.  Wordsworth,  Preface  to  Lyrical  Ballads,  1800,  "It  is  not,  then,  to  be 
supposed  that  any  one  who  holds  that  subhme  notion  of  Poetry  which  I  have 
attempted  to  convey,  will  break  in  upon  the  sanctity  and  truth  of  his  pictures 
by  transitory  and  accidental  ornaments,  and  endeavour  to  excite  admiration 
of  himself  by  arts,  the  necessity  of  which  must  manifestly  depend  upon  the 
assumed  meanness  of  his  subject."  There  can  hardly  be  a  better  introduction 
to  the  study  of  poetry — or  poetics — than  to  steep  one's  mind  in  this  Preface. 


LITERARY  INFLUENCES  59 

of  Ennius,  the  tragedy  of  Pacuvius  and  Attius,  the  comedy 
of  Plautus  and  Terence,  the  satire  of  Lucilius,  the  efforts 
of  poets  of  every  class,  had  accumulated  in  the  poetic 
treasury  of  the  Romans — well-defined  terms,  subtle  shades 
of  meaning,  natural  analogies,  graceful  turns  of  expression, 
happy  phrasing,  striking  images,  harmonious  combinations 
of  words,  that  precision  of  form,  that  art  in  composition, 
upon  which  the  easy  inspiration  of  Lucretius  lighted  by 
happy  chance,  and  which  the  skill  and  industry  of  Catullus 
sought  and  found — all  this,  such  was  the  fortune  of  their 
birth,  fell  to  Virgil  and  Horace  to  inherit,  and  entered 
into  the  formation  of  their  genius,  very  much  as,  at  the 
same  time,  the  various  powers  of  the  republican  constitution 
gathered  together  into  one  single  hand  to  form  the  absolute 
authority  of  their  imperial  protector."  ^ 

This  is  admirably  said.  Two  centuries  had  been  spent 
in  the  acquisition  of  ease,  precision,  and  direction,  and 
Virgil  gathered  the  fruits.  It  is  immaterial  how  many  lines 
Virgil  copied  from  Ennius,  for  Ennius'  contribution  to 
him  is  not  be  reckoned  in  that  way.  Ennius  was  the 
first  Roman  who  attacked  Homer  in  earnest,  who  really 
tried  "  to  wrench  his  club  from  Hercules."  ^  A  man  of  action, 
he  carried  his  vigour  into  his  poetry ;  but  the  kingdom  of 
heaven  is  not  always  to  be  taken  by  force.  Virgil  himself 
might  have  been  glad  to  be  the  author  of  the  line 

moribus  antiquis  stat  res  Romana  virisque,^ 

but  Ennius  did  not  always  write  so  well.  Yet  the  spirit  of  the 
line  seems  to  pervade  all  he  does — a  certain  strong  Roman 
quality,  which  he  did  not  find  in  his  Greek  originals,  which 
sometimes  fitted  ill  and  uncomfortably  with  what  he  did 
find  there,  but  which  is  really,  as  Patin  happily  calls  it, 
a  "  prophecy  of  Virgil."  *  And  to  this  we  must  add  his 
deliberate  choice  of  his  country  as  his  theme. 

There  is  a  foolish  story  that  Virgil,  surprised  with  a  copy 

^  Patin,  La  Po^sie  latine,  i.  p.  222. 

*  The  phrase  is  Virgil's  ;  Suet.  v.   Verg.  46. 

^  Ennius,  Annalis  xv.  (Miiller).     "On  ancient  ways  Rome  s  common  we 
rests  and  on  men." 

*  Patin,  La  Pohie  latine,  i.  p.  164. 


6o  ATRGIL 

of  Ennius  in  his  hand.  ss.:i  he  ws^  lookmg'  for  jewels 
in  the  dunghill  of  Ennius,^  But,  if  we  may  judge 
\'lrgil  by  his  Aeneid,  he  was  more  likely  to  class  Ennius 
among  the 

pii  vates  et  Phoebo  digna  locuti  -  (^.  vi.  662). 

The  poet  who  looked  with  pleasure  on  rustic  songs  in  the 
Satumian  metre,  versibus  incojnptis  {G.  n.  386),  must  have 
recognized  a  real  precursor  of  himself  in  this  re- incarnated 
Homer,  who  thought  the  thoughts  and  told  the  deeds  of 
Rome. 

But  it  is  when  we  reach  his  ov>ti  centun,-  that  we  find 
the  Latin  poet  to  whom  Virgil  owes  most.  From  Gellius 
onward  critics  have  remarked  his  indebtedness  to  Lucretius, 
though  Virgil,  one  may  say,  did  not  leave  the  critics  c 
discover  it,  but  announced  the  fact  himself  as  plaii 
as  the  nature  of  his  own  subjects  allowed.  For  instance, 
to  take  the  first  case,  the  sixth  Eclogue  pays  homage  to 
Lucretius.     Silenus, 

Forehead  and  brow  with  the  juice  of  a  blood-red  mulberry 
dyed  {E.  vi.  22,  Bowen), 

may  seem  remote  enough  from  the  austere  poet  of  the 
De  Reruni  Natia-a,  but  he  has  hardly  time  to  begin  his  song 
before  it  is  clear  where  he  learnt  it  The  rhythm  of  nanique 
canebat  uti  is  almost  as  explicit  as  the  terminology'  of 
niagnum  per  inane  coacta  semina,  and  together  they  bar 
the  claim  of  Apollonius  to  be  the  original  here,  quite  apart 
from  the  fact  that  his  Orpheus  gives  the  Argonauts  not 
Epicurean  but  (properly  enough)  Orphic  doctrine,  with  traces 
of  Empedoclean  teaching.^ 

The   bard    lopas,    who   sings    at   Dido's    feast    as  Demo- 

^  It  is  in  the  life  attributed  to  Donatus. 

*  "Poets  whose  hearts  were  clean,  and  their  songs  worthy  Phoebus'   ear" 
(Conington). 

^  Argon,  i.  496  f. — 

'fis  7aTa  Ka\  oirpavbs  -^^  OaXacca, 
TO  irplv  eir'  dWriXoLcri  fu-^  crvvaprjpoTa  fiop<pfi, 
veUeos  e|  oXooio  SieKpidev  dpLtph  eKacrra. 
See  Dieterich,  Nekyia,  p.  loi. 


LITERARY  INFLUENCES  6i 

docus  did  at  Alcinous',  is  another  witness  to  Lucretius' 
power. 

Hie  canit  errantem  lunam  solisque  labores 
unde  hominum  genus  et  pecudes,  unde  imber  et  ignes  ^ 
(A.  i.  742). 

But  the  most  famous  of  all  the  passages  is  that  in  the  second 
Georgic,  where  Virgil  speaks  of  the  happiness  of  him  who 
understands  the  principles  underlying  all  nature,  and  by  this 
knowledge  has  risen  above  all  fears,  above  inexorable  fate 
and  the  noise  of  greedy  Acheron — 

Felix  qui  potuit  rerum  cognoscere  causas, 

atque  metus  omnes  et  inexorabile  fatum 

subiecit  pedibus  strepitumque  Acherontis  avari  {G.  ii.  490). 

This  passage  comes  after  the  expression  of  Virgil's  desire  to 
be  the  poet  of  science  (G^.  ii.  475-82)  ;  it  is  fuil  of  Lucretian 
phrases,'^  and  it  represents  Lucretius'  point  of  view. 

Like  Catullus,^  Virgil  read  Lucretius  with  the  close  care 
of  admiration  and  affection.  His  early  longing  for  philosophy 
drew  him  to  this  great  exponent  of  all  nature.  Virgil  loved 
the  country,  and  here  was  a  man  who  looked  on  all  the  sights 
of  field  and  shore  with  the  eyes  of  genius,  and  gave  a  new 
meaning  and  a  deeper  value  to  all  by  subordinating  all  to 
great  underlying  principles — causae  rerii7n. 

Lucretius  had  also  the  simplicity  of  genius.  If  he  is  at  times 
hard  to  understand,  it  is  because  his  matter  is  itself  difficult, 
sometimes  too  difficult  for  his  verse  or  any  verse.  No  poet 
could  be  more  honest  in  his  confession  that  he  is  seeking  for 
charm  of  language,  but  what  makes  this  quest  unique  is  its 
entire  subordination  to  the  main  purpose  in  hand.*  No 
Roman  poet  is  more  absolutely  true  in  his  language,  just  as 

^  Sings  of  the  moons  that  wander,  of  suns  eclipsed  and  in  pain, 
Whence  the  beginning  of  man  and  of  beast,  of  the  fire  and  the  rain. 

(Bowen.) 

*  See  Munro  on  Lucr.  i.  78,  253  ;  iii.  449.  Cf.  the  beginning  of  the  Ciris, 
which  we  are  now  told  to  attribute  to  Gallus.  Cf.  Skutsch  Aus  Vergils  Fruhzeii, 
and  the  delightful  lecture  of  Professor  Mackail  on  the  Circle  of  Virgil,  Lectures 
oil  Poetry  (1911). 

^  See  Munro  on  Lucr.  iii.  57. 

*  Lucr.  i.  143-5. 


62  VIRGIL 

*- — - 

none  is  more  single  in  his  loyalty  to  truth  in  thought.  He 
has  nothing  to  say  explicitly  of  his  country  and  his  people, 
but  not  Virgil  himself  is  more  profoundly  Roman  in  solidity 
and  integrity  of  thought  and  utterance.  His  verse  is  Latin 
in  word,  beat,  movement,  and  there  is  much,  for  example,  in 
Munro's  suggestion  that  his  avoidance  of  spondaic  endings  in 
his  sixth  book  (though  following  the  tradition  of  Ennius  he 
had  used  them  in  the  other  five)  is  a  sort  of  scornful  criticism 
of  the  modish  writing  of  poets  around  him,  with  whom  the 
Alexandrine  a-TrovSetd^cov  was  the  latest  prettiness.^  It  was 
not  Roman  to  be  pretty.  His  master  was  Ennius,  and  he 
learnt  of  him  a  grander,  a  simpler,  and  a  more  severe  speech. 
He  is  not  so  careful  as  Virgil  to  avoid  monotony  and  rough- 
ness, but  we  shall  not  be  far  wrong  in  attributing  to  him 
some  share  in  the  creation  of  the  Virgilian  hexameter.  If 
Catullus  and  his  school  gave  it  what  M.  Patin  calls  its 
precision,  Lucretius  contributed  simplicity  and  dignity. 
Take  as  an  example  of  "symphony  austere  "  these  lines — 

In  caeloque  deum  sedes  et  templa  locarunt, 
per  caelum  volvi  quia  nox  et  luna  videtur, 
luna  dies  et  nox  et  noctis  signa  severa 
noctivagaeque  faces  caeli  flammaeque  volantes, 
nubila  sol  imbres  nix  venti  fulmina  grando 
et  rapidi  fremitus  et  murmura  magna  minarum  ^ 

(v.  1188-93). 
Let  these  lines  be  tried  by  any  test.  The  thought  would  be 
as  sound  in  prose  ;  the  language  is  near  enough  to  that  used 
by  men  to  suit  Wordsworth's  canon — long  before  Wordsworth 
framed  that  canon  Bentley  had  magnificently  quoted  the 
line 

luna  dies  et  nox  et  noctis  signa  severa 

^  Munro,  Lucr.  vol.  ii.  p.  14.  Cf.  Cicero,  ad  Ait.  vii.  2.  i  Ita  belle  nobis Jlavit 
ab  Epiro  lenissimtis  Onchesmiies.  Hunc  <jTtovhei6.'^ovTa.  si  cui  voles  rOiv  vewrepiov 
pro  tiio  vendita  ;  and  Catullus,  Ixiv.  78-80,  the  three  consecutive  lines  ending 
innuptaruni,  Alinoiauro,  vexareniur. 

^  "  And  they  placed  in  heaven  the  abodes  and  realms  of  the  gods,  because  night 
and  moon  are  seen  to  roll  through  heaven,  moon  day  and  night  and  night's  austere 
constellations  and  night-wandering  meteors  of  the  sky  and  Hying  bodies  of  flame, 
clouds  sun  rains  snow  winds  lightnings  hail  and  rapid  rumblings  and  loud 
threatful  thunderclaps"  (Munro). 


LITERARY  INFLUENCES  63 

as  an  example  of  the  power  of  "  common  words  "  ^ — the  sense 
is  direct,  the  movement  is  rapid,  and  the  passage  has  the  note 
of  grandeur. 

Virgil  might  respond  to  the  influence  of  Lucretius  as  he 
did  to  that  of  other  poets,  but  he  was  no  man's  disciple. 
As  he  grew  older  he  became  dissatisfied  with  Lucretius' 
philosophy,  and  tried  to  reconcile  it  somehow  with  other 
aspects  of  truth,  which  he  had  himself  realized.  It  became 
quite  clear  that  this  was  not  to  be  done,  and  Lucretius' 
Epicureanism  had  more  and  more  to  be  modified.  Virgil 
did  not  live  to  achieve  the  reconciliation  which  he  felt 
to  be  necessary ;  and  we  find  in  him  a  man  distracted  with 
the  spiritual  necessity  of  holding  opinions,  which  clearly 
conflict,  but  which  are  yet  valid  for  him  in  virtue  of 
undoubted  elements  of  truth. 

OvTOi  avvexSeiv  aXKa  crvjUipiXeiv  e<pui^  ^ 

might  be  a  fair  summary  of  his  attitude  to  religious  and 
philosophical  thought.  The  temper  is  an  entirely  honest 
one  ;  but  while  it  is  a  necessary  stage  in  development,  it 
hardly  seems  a  final  or  a  happy  position.  The  prolongation 
of  this  period  of  suspense  developed  in  Virgil  a  certain 
indistinct  habit  of  thought.  Dissatisfied  with  obvious 
antitheses  as  superficial,  but  unable  to  penetrate  them  and 
discover  some  fundamental  unity  underlying  them,  he 
seems  at  times  to  confuse  rather  than  to  reconcile,  and 
eventually  everything  he  does  is  apt  to  be  affected  by  the 
habit.  The  same  unhealed  division  of  mind  shows  itself 
in  his  verse,  which  rarely  keeps  for  long  the  clear  and 
unclouded  directness  of  Lucretius.  It  reflects  the  poet 
himself,  which  is  after  all  what  a  poet's  verse  should  do  ; 
and  it  has  its  own  grandeur,  which  is  not  that  of  Lucretius, 
but  springs  naturally  from  the  poet's  struggle,  unsuccessful 
as  it  may  be,  to  grasp  the  whole  of  things.  It  represents 
the  last  achievement  of  Roman  poetry,  for  after  Virgil 
no     Roman    poet    rose    to    such    heights    of    mind.      His 

*  See  Jebb,  Benlley,  p.  69. 

•  '"Tis  not  my  nature  to  join  in  hating,  but  in  loving."  Sophocles'  Anligone 
523  (Jebb). 


64  VIRGIL 

successors  thought  of  little  but  style,  and  had  no  philosophy. 
Thus  the  last  utterance  of  Roman  poetry  has  the  strong 
sad  tone  of  Virgil's  mind,  that  tone  which  led  Tennyson 
to  address  the  poet  as 

Thou   majestic   in  thy  sadness  at  the  doubtful  doom  of 
human  kind.^ 

Lastly  we  come  to  Catullus.  Virgil's  interest  in  Catullus 
is  proved  by  one  of  the  most  extraordinary  examples  of  his 
habit  of  borrowing.  In  the  world  below  Aeneas  meets 
Dido's  shade  and  addresses  her — 

In  Vitus,  regina,  tuo  de  litore  cessi  ^  (A.  vi.  460). 

It  is  a  bold,  clear,  good  statement,  but  it  suggests  the 
most  disconcerting  of  all  possible  parallels.  For  it  is  a 
reminiscence  o{  the  translation  which  Catullus  made  of 
Callimachus'  Co7?ia  Berenices,  where  the  severed  lock,  though 
already  a  constellation,  professes  to  regret  its  departure 
from  the  queen's  head — 

Invita,  O  regina,  tuo  de  vertice  cessi  ^  (Catullus,  Ixvi.  39). 

This  is  the  very  last  thing  of  which  we  should  wish  to  be 
reminded  in  the  situation.  Yet,  though  happily  an  extreme 
case,  it  is  a  typical  instance  of  the  habit,  which  Virgil 
shared  with  his  contemporaries,  of  transferring  good  lines 
from  the  pages  of  others  to  his  own.* 

But  after  all  it  is  quite  accidental  that  Virgil  finds  in 
Catullus    a   line   so    readily   to    be   converted    to   his   own 

^  It  has  been  suggested  that  too  much  emphasis  has  been  laid  on  Virgil's 
sadness.  The  criticism  is  just,  if  it  is  not  remembered  that  there  are  other 
elements  in  the  poet's  thought. 

2  "Against  my  will,  O  queen,  I  left  thy  shore." 

3  "  Against  my  will,  O  queen,  I  left  thy  head." 

*  The  reader  will  remember  the  episode  of  Johnson  and  Boswell  leaving  Inch 
Keith,  when  Johnson  called  for  "a  classical  compliment  to  the  island."  "I 
happened  luckily,  in  allusion  to  the  beautiful  Queen  Mary,  whose  name  is  upon 
the  fort,  to  think  of  what  Virgil  makes  Aeneas  say,  on  having  left  the  country 
of  his  charming  Dido. 

'  Invitus,  regina,  tuo  de  litore  cessi.' 
'Very  well  hit  off!'   said  he"  {Tour  to   the  Hebrides,  Aug.    i8).      Consider- 
ing the  origin  of  the  line,  one  is  tempted  to  say  it  is  more  in  keeping  here  than 
in  the  sixth  Aeneid. 


LITERARY  INFLUENCES  65 

purposes.  His  real  debt  to  Catullus  is  profounder.  I 
cannot  do  better  here  than  to  quote  M.  Patin  once  more. 

"Catullus  does  not  improvise  [as  Lucilius  did];  on  the 
contrary,  he  weighs  words,  he  even  counts  them  ;  he  chooses, 
arranges,  and  plans  ;  he  has  already  in  his  composition  and 
in  his  style  those  definite  and  precise  forms,  that  fine  and 
delicate  touch,  that  tempered  strength,  which  moderates 
itself,  which  of  set  purpose  refrains,  which  cloaks  itself 
under  the  graces  of  urbanity — 

urbani  parcentis  viribus  atque 

extenuantis  eas  consulto — 

in  fact  all  those  characteristics  which  are  supposed  to 
distinguish  the  poets  of  the  following  age."  ^ 

In  other  words,  just  as  Tennyson  affected  the  composition 
of  English  poetry,  even  apart  from  clear  imitators  of 
himself,  by  compelling  a  more  self-conscious  and  more 
studied  style,  so  Catullus  abolished  the  school  of  Ennius — 
yes,  and  Lucretius  too,  before  he  had  time  to  found  a  school, 
— and  compelled  all  later  poets  to  reflect  more  upon  style 
and  all  its  niceties  and  minutiae  than  had  ever  been  the 
custom  in  Rome  before.  None  of  these — we  may  disregard 
for  the  moment  those  who  really  did  not  succeed  in  opening 
their  mouths — meditated  upon  his  style  as  Virgil  did. 
Propertius,  no  doubt,  thought  of  nothing  very  much  apart 
from  style,  yet  he  cannot  be  said  to  have  achieved  any 
of  Matthew  Arnold's  "notes"  of  the  great  poet.  Virgil, 
however,  spoke  out  and  had  something  to  say,  and  yet  could 
choose,  refine  and  concentrate  his  diction  with  more  patience 
and  more  power  than  any  poet  of  them  all.  And  in  this  we 
may  find  the  influence  of  Catullus.  Yet  his  debt  to  Lucretius 
is  greater,  for  the  whole  history  of  his  mind  is  affected  by 
his  attitude  toward  Lucretius'  philosophy. 

Virgil,  as  we  have  seen,  conformed  to  the  contemporary 
practice  in  Rome  and  borrowed  largely  from  his  Greek  and 
Latin  predecessors,  and  often  enough  he  transferred  his 
material    in    a   sufficiently   external    way.      But   yet,    when 

^  Patin,  La  Poisie  latine,  i.  p.  59 ;  the  quotation  is  from  Horace,  Sat. 
i.  10.  13. 

5 


66  VIRGIL 

every  deduction  is  made  for  this,  and  when  we  have  con- 
sidered the  real  influence  which  his  great  precursors  had 
upon  his  mind  and  upon  his  outlook  on  life,  we  realize  the 
substantial  truth  of  Goethe's  saying  that "  To  make  an  epoch 
in  the  world  two  conditions  are  notoriously  essential — a 
good  head  and  a  great  inheritance."  ^  Supplement  these 
with  another  condition,  on  which  Goethe  elsewhere  lays 
great  emphasis,  and  Virgil's  endowment  for  his  poetry  is 
fairly  stated.  "  We  cannot  deny,"  said  Goethe  of  a  con- 
temporary poet, "  that  he  has  many  brilliant  qualities,  but  he 
is  wanting  in — love.'^  ^ 

1  Conversations  with  Eckermann,  May  2,  1824. 

2  Ibid.  Dec.  25,  1825.     He  is  generally  supposed  to  have  meant  Heine.     Cf. 
Arnold  in  his  poem  Heine's  Grave. 


CHAPTER  III 
LITERATURE— 2.  CONTEMPORARIES 

Not  from  a  vain  or  shallow  thought 

His  awful  Jove  young  Phidias  brought ; 

Never  from  lips  of  cunning  fell 

The  thrilling  Delphic  oracle  ; 

Out  from  the  heart  of  nature  rolled 

The  burdens  of  the  Bible  old  ; 

The  litanies  of  nations  came, 

Like  the  volcano's  tongue  of  flame, 

Up  from  the  burning  core  below — 

The  canticles  of  love  and  woe. — Emerson,  The  Problem. 

ONE  of  the  things  that  mark  Virgil  as  different  from 
the  other  poets  of  his  day  is  the  long  and  increas- 
ingly vigorous  life  of  his  poetic  genius.  Fate 
snuffed  out  some  of  his  contemporaries  in  comparatively 
early  manhood,  but  not,  one  thinks,  before  they  had  given 
mankind  all,  or  nearly  all,  the  light  they  had  to  give.  Others 
survived  their  genius,  and  either  became  silent  altogether  or 
took  refuge  in  imitating  themselves.  Horace  avowed  that 
poetry  had  been  for  him  an  affair  of  youth  and  poverty; 
that,  now  he  was  older  and  more  well-to-do,  he  did  not  care 
to  write  ;  he  preferred  reading  Homer  and  making  excursions 
into  popular  philosophy  ;  somebody  else,  who,  like  the 
soldier  of  Lucullus,  had  "lost  his  purse,"  might  write  now.^ 
It  may  have  been  that  he  felt,  as  he  grew  to  have  a  deeper 
appreciation  of  the  meaning  and  purpose  of  poetry,  that  he 
was  not  entirely  fit  for  the  work — though  after  all  it  is  hard 
to  see  why  a  genuine  Epicurean  should  ever  wish  to  write 
poetry  at  all.  But  Virgil,  on  the  other  hand,  shows  a  steady 
growth  in  insight  and  in  power  of  expression.  Poetry  was 
not  with  him  either  an  amusement  or  a  trade.     He  wrote 

^  Horace,  Epp.  ii.  2.  26-40,  and  following  (cf.  Epp.  i.  2.  i).  Dean  Wickham 
finds  here  "  some  irony  and  exaggeration,  no  doubt,  but  some  substantial  truth  " 
{Horace  for  English  Readers). 

67 


68  VIRGIL 

neither  for  popularity  nor  advancement,  neither  to  please 
others  nor  to  amuse  himself.  Poetry  was  to  him  something 
like  the  "  burden  "  of  a  Hebrew  prophet,  a  necessity.  Thought 
and  feeling  sought  and  compelled  expression,  not  any  ex- 
pression, but  their  "  inevitable"  expression.  This  necessity 
for  the  perfect  utterance  of  his  nature  kept  him  beyond  the 
reach  of  the  dangers  of  lesser  artists.  Indolence  could 
not  rob  the  world  of  what  was  due  to  it  from  him,  nor 
impatience  wring  it  from  him  before  it  was  mature.  In 
him  Art  is  "  imitating  Nature "  ;  it  has  something  of  the 
same  inexhaustible  vitality,  the  same  necessity  for  self- 
expression  ;  it  follows  a  somewhat  similar  method  of  evolu- 
tion, relentlessly  sacrificing  the  unfit  to  the  fit,  the  fit  to 
the  fittest,  suffering  nothing  to  go  forth  that  has  not  life 
in  itself  and  that  cannot  transmit  this  life — in  a  word  his 
art  is  essentially  quickening.^ 

Accordingly,  as  he  began  to  feel  himself  nearer  the  com- 
pletion of  the  Georgics,  his  mind  ranged  forward  to  his 
next  work.  What  was  it  to  be  ?  The  limits,  within  which 
he  would  seek  a  theme  were  narrower  than  we  might 
suppose,  for  it  was  the  tradition  so  far  of  Latin  poetry  to 
confine  itself  within  the  frontiers  of  Greek  literature.  The 
early  development  of  native  Italian  literature  had  been 
slow — "the  Romans  had  plenty  of  other  things  to  do,"  says 
M.  Patin,  "  to  make  their  constitution,  to  defend  themselves, 
to  conquer  the  world.  It  was  when  they  had  achieved  this 
task,  when  they  had  subdued  Italy,  crushed  Carthage,  taken 
possession  of  Greece,  that  they  found  poetry  among  their 
spoils,  so  to  say,  along  with  the  statues  which  Mummius 
with  such  particular  care,  with  such  insensibility,  gave 
orders  to  pack.  Transported,  transplanted  to  Rome,  poetry 
flourished  there  under  the  influence  of  a  luxury  and  a 
leisure  both  quite  new  for  the  Romans.  .  .  .  Rome  had 
made  a  Roman  province  of  Greece ;  by  a  sort  of  compensa- 
tion, quite  unexpected,  Roman  letters,  Roman  poetry  became 
provinces  of  the  Greek  imagination,"  ^     Latin  literature,  one 

^  I  am  glad  here  to  quote  Macrobius  {Sat.  v.  i.  20)  :  Ignoscite  nee  nimimn  me 
vocetis  qtd  naturae  rerum  Vergilmin  comparavi. 
2  Etudes  stir  la  Poisie  latine,  i.  p.  lo. 


CONTEMPORARIES  69 

might  almost  say,  ceases  to  develop  along  its  own  lines. 
It  is  thoroughly  Hellenized,  At  first  it  is  rather  that  Greek 
ideas  reappear  in  Latin  phrase ;  and  the  progress  of  Latin 
literature  is  from  handling  these  ideas  awkwardly  to 
handling  them  with  ease.  Of  course  this  is  not  entirely 
true,  for  the  greater  minds  were  still  Italian,  and  the 
literature  they  produced  was,  if  written  after  Greek  models, 
Italian  in  spirit.  The  Roman  thought  the  thing  out  for 
himself,  though  he  did  it  with  more  ease  when  he  had 
a  Greek  at  his  elbow. 

Bellipotentes  sunt  magi'  quam  sapientipotentes, 

as  Ennius  said  of  the  house  of  Aeacus.^ 

At  first  the  Roman  tried  mere  translation,  and  no  doubt 
found  some  satisfaction  in  the  task.  Homer  was  hammered 
manfully  and  conscientiously  into  Latin  hexameters. 

Crudum  manduces  Priamum  Priamique  pisinnos 

is  a  perfect  translation  of 

'Qyuoj/  I3e/3p(jo6oi<i  HpiajULOV  Upia/uoio  re  iraiSag, 

except  that,  as  is  suggested  by  the  scholiast  who  saved  it 
from  oblivion,  it  omits  the  feeling.^  From  Menander  and 
Euripides  the  Roman  poets  turned  to  the  Alexandrines, 
and  the  cantores  EicpJiorionis^  were  the  prevailing  school 
in  the  latter  days  of  the  republic.  Nothing  was  too  formid- 
able or  portentous  to  find  a  translator.  Even  so  great  a 
poet  as  Catullus  could  hope  to  add  to  his  fame  by  trans- 
lating from  Callimachus. 

But,  of  course,  the  stronger  writers  as  a  rule  would  not 
translate  or  even  be  content  with  adaptation.  It  was  rather 
that,  after  the  careful  study  of  the  mind,  the  manner,  and 
the  phrase  of  a  Greek  author,  they  wrote  something  origi- 
nal  and  Latin,    not    without  some  very   clear  marks  of  its 

^  ap.  Cic.  de  Div.  ii.  56.  116.  "  Mighty  in  war  are  they  rather  than  mighty  in 
wisdom." 

*  Labco  transhilit  Iliada  el  Odysseam,  verbum  ex  verbo,  ridicule  satis,  qitod  verba 
potius  quam  settstim  secutus  sit.  Eius  est  ille  versus :  crudum,  &c.  Schoh  ad 
Pers.  i.  4.     "Eat  Priam  raw  and  Priam's  children." 

*  Cicero,  Tusc.  iii.  19.  45.  "Singers  of  Euphorion  "  (Latin  imitators  of  the 
poetry  of  Euphorion  of  Chalcis). 


70  VIRGIL 

paternity.  Sii  suo  similis  patri'^  might  almost  be  a  canon 
of  this  literature.  Yet  the  Latin  poetry  of  the  age  of 
Julius,  so  much  of  it  as  survives,  is  in  the  main  independent 
and  individual,  the  natural  expression  of  the  Latin  mind, 
if  it  be  allowed  that  the  Latin  mind  is  thoroughly  steeped 
in  Greek  literature  and  has,  in  most  cases,  taken  at  least 
suggestion,  if  not  inspiration,  from  some  Greek  model. 
Thus  Virgil's  Eclogues  are  classed  as  imitations,  in  the  first 
instance,  of  Theocritus,  though  they  are,  as  we  have  seen, 
a  great  deal  more.  If  his  Italian  scenery  be,  as  critics  say, 
confused  with  Sicilian  and  even  with  Arcadian,  it  is  the 
Italian  which  leaves  upon  us  the  strongest  impression. 
Poem  by  poem  they  are  less  Theocritean  and  more  Roman 
and  Italian.  The  Greek  form  fits  the  Latin  spirit  somewhat 
oddly  to  modern  thinking,  but  it  pleased  the  general  Roman 
taste,  even  the  cultured  Roman  taste.  The  Georgics,  in 
like   manner,   owe  suggestion  to   Hesiod — so  Virgil  says — 

Ascraeumque  cano  Romana  per  oppida  carmen^  {G.  ii.  176), 

to  Nicander  and  Aratus  too  ;  yet  after  all  they  owe  but 
little  to  these  Greek  models,  who  have  now  little  or  no 
interest  but  for  the  fact  that  Virgil  used  them. 

And  now  that  the  Georgics  were  accomplished,  where 
was  he  to  turn  ?  to  which  of  the  Greeks  ?  So  far  he  had 
been  indebted  chiefly  to  Alexandria,  perhaps  because  he 
was  as  yet  more  familiar  with  Alexandrine  than  with 
classical  literature.  There  were,  however,  signs  that  he  was 
by  no  means  under  the  yoke  of  Alexandria.  There  is  a 
sense  of  nationality  about  his  writing,  a  directness  of  appeal 
to  his  own  Italian  people  at  large,  and  a  genial  frankness 
of  utterance — foreign  to  the  poets  of  the  Museum  and  their 
Latin  imitators,  and  promising  something  of  even  wider 
and  deeper  human  interest  than  he  had  yet  achieved.  What 
would  he  do? 

Setting  aside  didactic  verse,  we  find  that  the  enormous 
output  of  contemporary  poetry  may  be  roughly  classified 
as  dealing  with  mythology,  the  antiquities  of  Rome,  history, 

^  "  Let  him  be  like  his  father." 

*  "  The  song  of  Ascra  I  sing  through  the  towns  of  Rome." 


CONTEMPORARIES  7 i 

personal  experience,  and  national  glory.  Mythology  came 
straight  from  Alexandria,  entirely  foreign,  but  fascinating 
and  intimately  connected  with  painting.  The  last  days  of 
the  republic  arc  marked  by  an  astonishing  outburst  of  anti- 
quarianism.  History  from  Naevius  and  Ennius  onward 
had  been  a  favourite  field  for  Roman  poets.  Catullus  with 
his  poems  to  Lesbia  and  his  lampoons,  Cicero  with  his  auto- 
biographical epics,  and  Gallus,  Propertius,  Tibullus,  and 
their  school  of  erotic  poetry,  bear  witness  to  the  absorbing 
interest  felt  by  the  poets,  if  not  always  by  their  readers,  in 
their  own  personal  history.  As  for  national  consciousness, 
if  Ennius  had  written  histories  in  metre — 

Olli  respondit  rex  Albai  Longai.^ — 
he  had  struck  a  nobler  note  in  such  utterances  as  his 

Unus  homo  nobis  cunctando  restituit  rem,^ 
or  his 

Moribus  antiquis  stat  res  Romana  virisque.^ 

Virgil  is,  less  than  any  of  his  contemporaries,  an  autobio- 
graphical poet*  Pressure  was  to  be  put  upon  him  to 
deviate  into  a  poetry  of  a  personal  character,  though  he 
was  not  much  interested  in  it.  But  in  the  other  four  spheres 
of  poetic  activity  mentioned  he  was  keenly  interested.  He 
had  given  study  and  enthusiasm  to  them  all,  yet  he  was 
brought  into  bondage  by  none  of  them.  It  is  instructive 
to  inquire  what  his  contemporaries  were  doing  in  these 
directions,  and  from  the  results  of  their  attempts  to  deduce 
why  Virgil  would  not  go  with  them. 


I 

Mythology  was  one  of  the  contributions  of  Alexandria 
to  poetry,  particularly  mythology  Avith  an  erotic  tinge,  but 

^  Miiller,  Ennius  Ann.  i.  66.     '*  To  him  replied  the  King  of  Alba  Longa.'' 

*  "  One  man  by  delaying  gave  us  back  the  State." 

'  "On  ancient  ways  rests  Rome's  common  weal  and  on  men." 

*  Four  lines  suffice  him,  lines  full  of  character  and  charm — 

Illo  Vergiliuni  vie  tempore  dulcis  alebat 

Parthenope  studiis  Jlorentem  ignobilis  oti, 

Carmina  qui  lusi  pastorum  audaxque  iuventa 

Tiiyre  te patulae  cecini  sub  tegmine J'agi  (G.  iv.  563-6). 


72  VIRGIL 

scarcely,  even  on  its  erotic  side,  did  it  touch  life.  Still, 
mythological  poetry  received  a  warm  welcome  at  Rome,  and 
epics  and  elegies  were  written  with  the  most  Alexandrian 
tone  and  profusion.  Propertius  boasted  to  be  the  Roman 
Callimachus,^  and  wrote  his  elegies  with  unction,  as  we  shall 
see,  but  the  epics  were  too  much  even  for  his  taste.  Ponticus 
had  written  a  Thebaid,  which,  Propertius  protests  "on  his 
hopes  of  happiness,"  puts  him  next  to  Homer  and  even  made 
Homer's  primacy  doubtful — if  only  the  fates  would  be  kind? 
Yet  he  goes  on  to  say  that  if  Ponticus  is  ever  in  love  he 
will  be  sorry  he  ever  touched  Thebes,  and  he  will  recognise 
Propertius'  supremacy — 

tunc  ego  Romanis  praeferar  ingeniis. 

In  other  words,  Ponticus'  Thebaid,  like  all  the  other 
Memnonids  and  Thebaids  and  Argonautica,  might  be  never 
so  meritorious,  but  it  was  dull — it  had  no  vestige  of  human 
interest.  Propertius  did  not  seem  to  realize  that  one  might 
have  too  much  mythology  even  in  an  elegy. 

Let  us  take  an  example  of  mythology  in  an  elegy,  a  short 
poem  which  he  wrote  to  Postumus,  who  goes  eastward  to 
fight  the  Parthians  and  leaves  his  wife  Galla  behind. 
Postumus  will  quaff  the  Araxes,  and  Galla  will  pine  for 
good  news.  Postumus  is  happy  in  having  a  chaste  wife 
— he  is  like  another  Ulysses  with  a  faithful  Penelope. 
At  this  point  comes  a  sort  of  index  to  the  Odyssey,  a 
catalogue  of  Ulysses'  adventures  in  twelve  lines,  so  com- 
pact and  complete  that  to  count  them  on  one's  fingers 
is  irresistible ;  ^ 

Castra  decem  annorum  et  Ciconum  manus,  Ismara  capta, 

exustaeque  tuae  mox,  Polypheme,  genae, 
et  Circae  fraudes,  lotosque  herbaeque  tenaces, 

Scyllaque  et  alternas  scissa  Charybdis  aquas, 
Lampeties  Ithacis  veribus  mugisse  iuvencos : 

1  iv.  9.  43  inter  Callimachi  sat  erit  placiiisse  libellos  ;  and  v.  I.  64  Umbria 
Romani  pairia  Callimachi.  Yet  his  native  town  has  forgotten  him  for  Saint 
Francis. 

2  i.  7.  4  Sint  7nodo  fata  tuis  nioUia  carminibus. 

3  I  hope  no  reader  will  complain,  if  I  refuse  to  translate  these  foolish  lines. 


i 


CONTEMPORARIES  73 

(This  is  a  real  masterpiece — how  many  of  his  readers  will 
know  who  was  Lampetie?     The  poet  hastens  to  explain.) 

paverat  hos  Phoebo  filia  Lampetie : 

(Yes,  of  course,  if  the  reader  had  read  his  Odyssey  with  real 
care,  he  would  not  have  needed  this  note  in  the  text  to  tell 
him  who  Lampetie  was.  See  the  Odyssey,  says  Propertius, 
book  xii.  line  132 — omitting  to  notice,  however,  that  Homer 
does  not  identify  Phoebus  with  Lanipetie's  father,  the  sun.) 

et  thalamum  Aeaeae  flentis  fugisse  puellae 

(This  is  an  easy  riddle — Circe,  of  course.) 

totque  hiemis  noctes  totque  natasse  dies, 
nigrantesque  domos  animarum  intrasse  silentum, 
Sirenum  surdo  remige  adisse  lacus, 

(We  have  left  Homer's  order  of  events  here,  but  notice  the 
fine  allusiveness  of  surdo  feinige.) 

et  veteres  arcus  leto  renovasse  procorum, 
errorisque  sui  sic  statuisse  modum. 

"  Oh  !  yes  !  "  the  poet  remembers  with  a  start,  "  Penelope,  of 
course— Penelope's  special  fame  is  eclipsed  by  Galla."  ^ 

This  is  an  easy  example,  for  all  the  references  are  to  a 
well-known  book,  but  the  genuine  Alexandrine  instinct 
was  to  make  them  to  a  book  unknown  if  possible,  as  if  the 
best  poetry  was  that  which  could  carry  the  largest  and  most 
irrelevant  weight  of  dead  matter — Professorenpoesie,  in  fact.^ 
Virgil,  however,  was  a  poet  interpreting  life  to  the  living, 
and  he  realized  the  wisdom  of  leaving  the  dead  to  bury  their 
dead  in  cyclopaedias  or  poems  as  they  preferred. 

But  there  was  another  side  to  the  mythology :  another 
contemporary  of  Virgil's  made  his  reputation  by  it.  Ovid, 
like  Propertius,  was  learned  in  all  the  wisdom  of  the 
Egyptians,  but  he  did  not  take  it  seriously.^  Gods  and 
heroes  lose  in  his  hands  that  antique  air  which  made  them 

^  Propertius,  iv.  11.  25-36. 

*  The  word  is  taken  from  Wilamowitz-Moellendorff. 

'  See  Boissier,  Rotne  et  PompH,  ch.  vi.  §  4,  p.  375  (Fr.) ;  p.  405  (Engl,  tr.). 


74  VIRGIL 

venerable.  He  makes  them  into  men,  and  men  exactly  like 
those  among  whom  he  lived.  The  heroines  who  write  love- 
letters  of  such  length  and  cleverness  are  really  the  contem- 
poraries of  Corinna,  and  have  been  in  good  society  and 
learnt  the  etiquette  of  gallantry  in  the  Ars  Atnoris.  Ovid 
adds  to  his  Alexandrian  learning  an  air  of  humour  which 
gives  it  quite  a  new  complexion.  In  fact,  as  M.  Boissier  brings 
out,  the  mythology  is  no  more  to  him  than  to  the  painters  of 
Pompeii.  Helbig  has  reckoned  that,  of  nearly  2000  pictures 
found  there,  1400  deal  with  subjects  from  the  Greek 
mythology.  Most  of  these  subjects  are  love-stories — 
Danae,  lo,  Leda,  Europa,  Daphne,  Aphrodite  and  Ares, 
coming  over  and  over  again — and  they  are  not  treated  in 
any  spirit  of  reverence  or  religion  at  all,  rather  with  an 
air  of  mere  sentimentalism,  and  occasionally  of  vulgarity. 
Jewelled  heroines,  old  women  selling  little  Cupids  to 
young  girls,  Cupids  dancing,  gathering  grapes,  guiding 
teams  of  lions,  bringing  letters  to  Polyphemus  from  Galatea 
— it  is  to  this  that  the  mythology  has  come.  Even  before 
Virgil's  day  in  so  serious  a  poem  as  Catullus'  Ariadne — 
a  theme,  by  the  way,  treated  in  more  than  thirty  Pompeian 
pictures — we  have  the  pretty  and  the  pictorial  asserting 
itself— 

Non  flavo  retinens  subtilem  vertice  mitram, 

non  contecta  levi  velatum  pectus  amictu, 

non  tereti  strophio  lactentis  vincta  papillas, 

omnia  quae  toto  delapsa  e  corpore  passim 

ipsius  ante  pedes  fluctus  salis  alludebant  ^  (Ixiv.  62,). 

Tum  tremuli  salis  adversas  procurrere  in  undas, 
moUia  nudatae  tollentem  tegmina  surae^  (Ixiv.  128). 

^  "  Down  dropp'd  the  fillet  from  her  golden  hair, 

Dropp'd  the  light  vest  that  veil'd  her  bosom  fair. 

The  filmy  cincture  dropp'd,  that  strove  to  bind 

Her  orbed  breasts,  which  would  not  be  confined  ; 

And,  as  they  fell  around  her  feet  of  snow, 

The  salt  waves  caught  and  flung  them  to  and  fro"  (Sir  Theodore  Martin). 
^  "Anon  she  rush'd  into  the  plashing  sea, 

Her  fair  soft  limbs  unbaring  to  the  knee."    (Sir  Theodore  Martin). 


CONTEMPORARIES  75 

Mythology,    then,    involved    its     votary    in    pedantry,    or 
flippancy,  or  mere  prettiness. 

But  Virgil  had  already  made  his  experiments  in 
Alexandrinism.  "The  frigid  mythology,"  says  Mr  Myers, 
"  with  which  the  first  Georgic  opens  is  absolutely  bad.  It  is 
bad  as  Callimachus  is  bad,  and  as  every  other  imitation  of 
Callimachus  is  bad  too."  Is  Tethys  trying  to  buy  Augustus 
as  a  son-in-law  with  a  dowry  of  all  her  waters  ?  or  does 
Augustus  propose  to  be  a  new  star  ^  where  a  space  is 
opening  between  Erigone  and  the  Claws  ? — the  Scorpion  is 
drawing  in  his  arms  already.  He  surely  will  not  prefer  to 
be  king  of  Tartarus  in  spite  of  Greek  accounts  of  Elysium. 
What  does  all  this  mean  ?  Does  it  mean  anything  ?  What 
would  Lucretius  say  to  it,  coming  from  a  pupil  of  his 
own  ?  Virgil  did  not  do  it  again.  The  meaning  of  the 
short  clause  at  the  opening  of  the  second  Georgic  has  been 
debated. 

Non  hie  te  carmine  ficto, 

atque  per  ambages  et  longa  exorsa  tenebo  ^  {G.  ii.  45-6) 

Whom  is  he  addressing  ?  his  reader  ?  Does  he  mean  that  at 
some  future  day  he  will  weave  some  romantic  or  mythical 
strain, — something  long,  involved,  and  Alexandrine, — as 
Conington  half  thinks  the  words  (especially  hie)  may  imply, 
or  is  it  an  apology  for  the  unreality  of  the  flattering  exordium 
of  the  first  book  ?  ^ 

At  all  events,  when  he  reaches  his  third  Georgic,  he  begins 
with  a  renunciation  of  Alexandria  and  its  mythological 
themes  which  is  clear  enough.  The  episode  of  Aristaeus 
and  Orpheus,  at  the  end  of  the  fourth,  is  indeed  in  the 
manner  of  that  school,  but  it  was  not  part  of  Virgil's  original 
design,  and  in  any  case  the  story  of  the  half-regained 
Eurydice  redeems  its  setting.  But  the  resolution  of  the 
poet  not  to  go  with  any  Callimachus,  Cyrenian  or  Umbrian, 

1  The  redtictio  ad  ahsiirdum  of  this  is  Claudian's  account  of  how  Theodosius, 
after  a  last  address  to  his  sons,  shot  up  into  heaven  and  left  a  path  of  light  on  the 
clouds  (iii.  Cons.  Hon.  162-74) — a  strange  pagan  end  for  a  Christian  emperor. 

*  "  I  will  not  detain  thee  here  with  mythic  strains,  or  circuitous  detail,  or 
lengthy  preambles  "  (Conington). 

'  Myers,  Essays  Classical,  pp.  153-4. 


ye  VIRGIL 

is  significant  for  the  vigour  with  which  he  expresses  it,  and 
with  which  he  adheres  to  it,  "All  the  themes,"  he  says, 
"  which  once  could  have  laid  the  spell  of  poesy  on  idle  minds 
{vacuus  vientes,  a  very  significant  phrase),  are,  all  of  them, 
hackneyed  now.  Who  knows  not  Eurystheus,  hardest  of 
masters,  or  the  altars  of  Busiris,  whom  never  tongue  praised  ? 
Who  has  not  told  the  tale  of  the  lost  boy  Hylas,  of  Latona 
and  her  Delos,  of  Hippodamia  and  Pelops  of  the  ivory 
shoulder,  Pelops  the  driver  of  horses  ?  "  {G.  iii.  3).  Why  does 
the  poet  reject  such  themes?  Partly  because  the  world  had 
had  far  too  many  Herakleids  and  Pelopids  and  so  forth 
already  ;  and  partly,  and  chiefly,  because  Virgil  felt  that 
these  were  really  idle  and  empty  themes  ;  they  did  not  touch 
life  and  they  were  irrelevant  to  his  people.^  Virgil's  rejection 
of  mythology  and  Ovid's  application  of  it,  coming  as  they 
did  in  the  same  generation,  explain  one  another  amply. 


II 

But  if  Virgil  was  right  in  refusing  Greek  mythology, 
Latin  and  Roman  antiquities,  it  might  be  urged,  stood  on 
another  footing.  There  was  a  general  awakening  of  interest 
in  these  matters  at  the  time.^  Varro  in  the  course  of 
his  long  life  set  in  order  some  forty-one  books  oi  Antiquities, 
according  to  St  Augustine,  twenty-five  of  which  he  gave  to 
human  subjects  (six  to  men,  six  to  places,  six  to  chronology, 
and  six  to  events  [rebus),  and  one  for  an  introduction),  and 
sixteen  to  the  gods.  ''  Who,"  Augustine  asks,  "  ever  sought 
out  these  matters  with  more  care  than  Marcus  Varro  ?  Who 
showed  more  learning  in  their  discovery .''  Who  pondered 
them  with  more  attention,  or  grouped  them  with  more 
acuteness,  or  wrote  of  them  with  more  diligence  or  at  greater 
length  ?  Though  he  has  not  so  agreeable  a  style,  yet  he  is 
so  full  of  information  and  ideas  {sententiis),  that  in  all  those 
studies,  which  we  call  secular  but  they  call  liberal,  he  has  as 

^  Cf.  Patin,  La  Poisie  latine,  i.  209:  "  Ces  vieux  sujets,  sans  rapport  aucun 
avec  les  preoccupations  de  la  pensee  romaine." 

2  Norden,  Neiujahrbiicher  fiir  kl.  Allertuin,  1901,  has  an  interesting  article 
on  this  movement,  which  he  aptly  calls  Romanticism. 


CONTEMPORARIES  77 

much  instruction  for  the  student  of  such  matters  as  Cicero 
has  deh'ght  for  the  student  of  words."  ^  But  Varro  was  not 
alone  in  this.  Dionysius  of  HaHcarnassus  wrote  his  twenty 
books  of  Roman  Antiquities  in  the  reign  of  Augustus,  and 
Livy  his  first  decade  dealing  with  the  Roman  kings  and  the 
early  wars  of  the  Republic. 

The  poets,  too,  began  to  look  in  this  direction  for  inspira- 
tion. Propertius,  after  exhausting  the  poetic  value  of  Cynthia, 
turned  to  Rome  and  her  antiquities — 

Sacra  diesque  canam,  et  cognomina  prisca  locorum  ^  (v.  i.  69), 

and  he  wrote  one  or  two  elegies  dealing  with  the  famous  spots 
of  the  city,  but  he  soon  gave  it  up.  He  was  too  clever  for 
his  matter. 

Fictilibus  crevere  deis  haec  aurea  templa^  (v.  i.  5) 

is  a  clever  saying,  but  it  hardly  promises  well  for  a  really 
sympathetic  treatment  of  the  old  days.  But  there  is  a 
couplet  in  the  poem  which  excels  it  and  leaves  no  more  to 
be  said — 

Optima  nutricum  nostris  lupa  Martia  rebus, 
qualia  creverunt  moenia  lacte  tuo^  (v.  i.  55). 

The  task  which  Propertius  gave  up  was  undertaken  by 
Ovid,  who  wrote  twelve  books  of  Fasti,  dealing  with  old 
Roman  customs  and  legends  in  the  order  of  the  calendar. 
Six  alone  have  reached  us,  of  which  Mr  Mackail  remarks 
that  "  it  cannot  be  said  that  Latin  poetry  would  be  much 

*  Augustine,  de  Civitate  Dei,  vi.  2  and  3.  In  the  chapters  that  follow  the 
antiquary  furnishes  the  saint  with  ammunition  to  be  used  against  paganism.  He 
had  a  bad  name  already  with  pious  pagans  of  the  day,  cf.  Servius,  ad  Ain.  xi. 
787  Varro  libiqiie  exptignalor  religionis.  Varro  was  born  in  1 16  and  died  in 
28  B.C.  On  Varro  see  Warde  Fowler,  Social  Life  at  Rome  (1908)  pp.  335,  336  ; 
Varro,  holding  the  Stoic  doctrine  of  the  animus  mundi,  co-ordinates  it  with  the 
Grseco-Roman  religion  of  the  State  in  his  day — the  chief  gods  represent  the/ar/^j 
miindi,  while  the  dai/xoves  are  used  to  rescue  the  Italian  /ares,  genii,  etc. 

*  "  Of  sacred  rites  and  days  will  I  sing,  and  of  ancient  names  of  places." 
'  "  For  gods  of  clay  these  golden  temples  rose." 

*  ' '  Best  of  nurses  for  our  State,  O  Wolf  of  Mars,  what  walls  have  grown  from  thy 
milk  ! " 


78  VIRGIL 

poorer"  if  they  had  been  suppressed  with  the  other  six.  The 
author  of  the  Heroiduin  Epistiilae  was  not  of  the  genuine 
antiquary  type,  and  however  laboriously  he  might  "  dig  the 
sacred  usages  out  of  the  ancient  annals,"  ^  he  did  not  really 
care  for  them.  He  wrote  from  his  heart  only  when  he  was 
engaged  on  themes  nearer  himself  and  his  day ;  let  others 
play  with  antiquity,  he  preferred,  he  says,  to  be  modern  ; 
his  own  age  suited  him  exactly — 

Prisca  invent  alios,  ego  me  nunc  denique  natum 

gratulor  ;  haec  aetas  moribus  apta  meis  {^A,  A.  3.  121). 

Virgil  too  had  felt  the  attraction  of  antiquity.  Indeed  at 
an  earlier  period  of  his  life  he  had  begun  an  epic  dealing 
with  the  kings  of  Rome  or  of  Alba,  but  he  abandoned  it. 
Apollo,  he  says,  touched  his  ear  and  said  that  a  shepherd's 
business  was  to  feed  sheep — 

Cum  canerem  reges  et  proelia,  Cynthius  aurem 

vellit  et  admonuit :  pastorem,  Tityre,  pinguis 

pascere  oportet  ovis,  deductum  dicere  carmen  ^  {E.  vi.  3). 

In  plainer  language,  he  did  not  like  the  subject.  Cum  res 
Romanas  incohasset,  offensus  viateria  ad  Bucolica  transiit^ 
says  Suetonius  in  his  life  of  Virgil  (§  19).  He  probably 
felt  himself  unripe  as  yet  for  a  great  undertaking.  But 
now  he  realized  that  the  tales  of  Alba  were  after  all  as 
unimportant  and  as  remote  as  the  war  of  the  Seven  against 
Thebes.  He  wanted  a  larger  theme,  a  subject  of  ecumenical 
significance,  something  involving  a  wider  range  of  human 

^  Sacra  recognosces  annalihus  eruta  frisa's,  A  i.  7.  "I  have  now,"  wrote  Lord 
Macaulay,  at  the  end  of  his  Ovid,  "gone  through  the  whole  of  Ovid's  works,  and 
heartily  tired  I  am  of  him  and  them.  Yet  he  is  a  wonderfully  clever  man.  But 
he  has  two  insupportable  faults.  The  one  is  that  he  will  always  be  clever  ;  and 
the  other  that  he  never  knows  when  to  have  done.  He  is  rather  a  rhetorician 
than  a  poet.  There  is  little  feeling  in  his  poems.  .  .  .  He  seems  to  have  been  a 
very  good  fellow  ...  a  flatterer  and  a  coward  ;  but  kind  and  generous." 

2  "  When  I  was  venturing  to  sing  of  Kings  and  battles,  the  Cynthian  god 
touched  my  ear,  and  appealed  to  my  memory.  '  It  is  a  shepherd's  part,  Tityrus, 
that  the  sheep  that  he  feeds  should  be  fat,  and  the  songs  that  he  sings  thin ' " 
(Conington). 

*  "  After  beginning  the  history  of  Rome,  he  was  displeased  with  his  subject 
and  turned  to  Bucolics." 


I 


CONTEMPORARIES  79 

sympathies,  touching  mankind  at  more  points  than  a 
chronicle  of  village  forays  could  possibly  do.  And  he  was 
right.  In  spite  of  the  ease  of  Livy's  style  the  reader 
wearies  of  the  little  wars  and  the  long  speeches  in  which 
the  mythical  chieftains  of  his  first  book  indulge.  So  Virgil 
left  the  Fasti  to  Ovid,  as  he  had  left  him  the  mythology. 


Ill 

But  it  might  be  suggested  that,  while  undoubtedly  Alba 
was  very  remote  and  dead,  there  were  other  periods  of 
Roman  history  which  were  living,  full  of  great  men  and 
great  movements,  capable  surely  of  poetic  treatment.  Had 
not  Ennius  written  of  the  Punic  Wars?  was  not  Varius 
writing  of  Julius  and  of  Augustus?  For  the  moment,  let  us 
reserve  Varius  and  his  epics,  and  ask  why  Virgil  declined  to 
write  an  historical  poem.  It  brings  us  face  to  face  with 
the  other  question,  what  is  an  epic  .-*  To  discuss  this  with 
any  fullness  would  take  us  too  far  away,  but  we  can  answer 
it  in  part  by  making  clear  the  difference  between  an  epic  and 
an  historical  poem. 

One  of  the  chief  differences  is  the  want  of  unity  which  will 
not  allow  the  metrical  history  to  become  a  poem.  The 
poet  is  shackled  to  the  fact,  to  the  conscientious  narration  of 
a  series  of  details.  Event  follows  event,  and  all  must  be 
chronicled,  whether  capable  or  not  of  being  fused,  of  being 
related  to  the  central  conception,  without  which  a  poem  is 
impossible.  Incidents  and  episodes  may  come  in  thick 
succession,  but  they  remain  incidents  and  episodes,  mere 
disconnected  fragments.  As  a  rule  they  refuse  to  become 
organic  parts  of  one  living  whole  ;  they  delay  us  rather  than 
help  us  onward,  they  scatter  rather  than  concentrate  the 
thought. 

Again,  the  functions  of  poetry  and  history  are  really 
distinct.  "  Poetry,"  says  Aristotle,  "  is  a  more  philosophical 
and  a  higher  thing  {cnrovSanWepov)  than  history ;  for  poetry 
tends  to  express  the  universal,  history  the  particular.  By 
the  universal  I  mean  how  a  person  of  given  character  will  on 
occasion  speak  or  act,  according  to  the  law  of  probability  or 


8o  VIRGIL 

necessity.  The  particular  is,  for  example,  what  Alcibiades 
did  or  suffered."  ^  History  is  full  of  accidents,  strange 
chances,  and  anomalies,  while  poetry  has  no  more  to  do  with 
these  than  art  with  the  illustration  of  oddities  in  the  natural 
world.  Even  the  philosophical  treatment  of  history,  in  spite 
of  its  effort  to  exclude  the  accidental  and  reach  the  universal, 
is  scarcely  a  proper  theme  for  poetry.  The  conflict  of 
national  characters,  for  example,  though  real  enough  in  its 
way,  or  the  conflict  of  great  principles  maintained  by 
opposing  peoples  over  a  great  space  of  time,  can  only  be 
conceived  by  certain  abstraction  of  thought,  and  can  hardly 
be  represented  by  any  group  of  symbols  which  poetry  would 
care  to  use. 

Roman  literature  offers  us  two  great  examples  of  metrical 
history,  of  which  one  is  absurd  and  the  other  tiresome. 
Silius  Italicus  wrote  seventeen  books  of  Punica^  which  he 
tried  to  embellish  with  what  he  supposed  to  be  poetical 
ornament.  Hannibal  fights  under  Juno's  blessing,  because 
Dido  had  been  a  favourite  of  Juno.  Anna,  Dido's  sister, 
appears  to  him  on  the  eve  of  Cannae  to  tell  him  what  to  do 
(she  had  counselled  her  sister  in  the  Aeneid),  and  begins  by 
explaining  to  him  at  length  why  in  distant  ages  she  had 
left  Carthage  after  Dido's  death,  and  how  she  had  become  an 
Italian  goddess.  The  wind,  which  the  Romans  found  so 
disastrous  during  the  battle,  was  sent  by  Aeolus,  anxious 
once  more  to  oblige  Juno.  Lucan  discarded  all  such 
imbecilities  in  his  Pharsalia,  and  tried  to  carry  off  his  poem 
with  masses  of  scientific  information  and  academic  declama- 
tion, though  neither  of  these  aids  can  hide  the  fact  that  his 
epic  is  broken-backed  and. 

Like  a  wounded  snake,  drags  its  slow  length  along. 

We  cannot  tell  whether  Virgil  had  ever  read  Aristotle's 
Poetics,  but  he  probably  would  not  have  needed  Aristotle  to 
advise   him    to   avoid   attempting   an    historical    epic.     His 

^  Poetics,  9.  3,  4,  tr.  Butcher,  whose  remarks  in  his  larger  edition,  pp.  163,  183, 
should  be  studied.  Thucydides,  whose  work  was  used  as  a  source  by  the  writer 
of  the.' h.d7)vaioiv  EoXtreia,  but  was  little  read  in  the  fourth  century  B.C.,  might 
have  suggested  to  Aristotle  a  higher  conception  ©f  History. 


CONTEMPORARIES  8 1 

friend  Varius  had  given  himself  to  this  kind  of  work. 
Virgil  always  speaks  of  him  with  respect,  and  indeed  made 
him  one  of  his  executors,  but  he  must  have  felt  that  as  a  poet 
his  friend  was  astray.  Posterity  seems  to  have  agreed  with 
him.  Horace,  like  Virgil,  refused  to  attempt  anything  of 
the  kind,  modestly  saying  that  charming  as  it  would  be  to 
tell  how  temple  and  tower  went  to  the  ground,  how 
battles  were  fought  on  river  and  on  shore,  it  was  not  for  him.^ 
Let  us  recognize  once  more  the  sanity  of  Virgil's  genius  and 
the  sureness  of  his  judgement. 


fV 

If  historical  poetry  was  to  be  avoided,  the  biographical 
epic  was  even  less  possible.  To  turn  once  more  to  Aristotle, 
"  unity  of  plot  does  not,  as  some  persons  think,  consist 
in  the  unity  of  the  hero.  For  infinitely  various  are  the 
incidents  in  one  man's  life,  which  cannot  be  reduced  to 
unity ;  and  so,  too,  there  are  many  actions  of  one  man 
out  of  which  we  cannot  make  one  action.  Hence  the  error, 
as  it  appears,  of  all  poets  who  have  composed  a  Herakleid, 
a  Theseid,  or  other  poems  of  the  kind.  They  imagine 
that  as  Herakles  was  one  man  the  story  of  Herakles 
must  be  also  a  unity.  But  Homer,  as  in  all  else  he 
is  of  surpassing  merit,  here  too — whether  from  art  or 
natural  genius  —  seems  to  have  happily  discerned  the 
truth."  2 

This  would  be  one  objection  to  writing  the  deeds  of 
Augustus  in  an  epic,  but  there  was  another.  While  Augustus 
would  have  been,  from  Aristotle's  point  of  view,  quite  as  bad 
a  subject  as  Herakles,  from  another  he  was  even  worse. 
For,  if  Virgil  could  have  been  content  with  historical  truth 
and  have  been  willing  to  sacrifice  poetry,  Augustus  probably 
did  not  much  wish  for  historical  truth ;  he  preferred,  and 
no  doubt  meant  to  have,  panegyric.  Augustus  must  have 
known  something  of  the  lively  admiration  which  Virgil 
had  for  him,  but  he  can  hardly  have  understood  his  poetic 

>  Ep.  ii.  I.  250  f. 

>  Poetics,  c.  8.  1-3  (tr.  Butcher). 


82  VIRGIL 

temper.  He  probably  remarked  that  Virgil  stood  higher 
than  Varius  in  general  estimation,  and  concluded  that  if 
one  of  the  friends  could  panegyrize  him,  the  other,  the 
greater  of  the  two,  would  do  it  even  better. 

Indeed,  Virgil  seems  to  have  given  the  suggestion  some 
attention,  and  in  the  beginning  of  the  third  Georgic,  after 
his  rejection  of  mythology,  he  speaks  of  raising  a  temple 
in  Caesar's  honour,  with  pictures  of  the  Nile  and  the  cities 
of  Asia,  triumphal  columns  and  trophies,  and  statues  of 
the  race  of  Assaracus — 

Trosque  parens  et  Troiae  Cynthius  auctor — 

"  for  the  meantime  let  us  go  back  to  the  woods  of  the 
Dryads."  So  he  went  back  to  the  Dryads,  and  his  meta- 
phorical temple  was  never  built.  Virgil  has  not  given 
us,  perhaps  he  did  not  give  Augustus,  his  reasons  for  not 
fulfilling  this  promise,  but  it  is  possible  that  the  con- 
siderations indicated  above  were  among  them,  and,  even 
if  he  had  no  reasons,  his  poetic  instinct  was  monitor 
enough.^ 

So  far  we  have  considered  the  classes  of  subjects  which 
Virgil  rejected,  and  we  now  come  to  the  theme  he  chose, 
which  after  all  has  its  affinities  with  every  one  of  these 
classes,  and  yet  escapes  most  of  their  limitations.  He 
needed   a  subject,  which  should  have   a   unity  of  its  own, 

^  Another  view  is  advanced  by  Norden  {Neue  Jahrbiicher  fiir  kl.  Altertutn, 
1901,  pp.  313-22).  He  quotes  the  passage  I  have  taken  from  Aristotle,  but 
dismisses  the  idea  that  Virgil  was  influenced  in  his  change  of  plan  by 
" aesthetic "  reasons.  (Norden  elsewhere  shows  great  contempt  for  "aesthetic 
criticism.")  He  urges  that  we  must  look  for  Virgil's  reasons  in  the  politics 
of  the  day.  The  civil  wars  were  over,  peace  was  restored  to  the  world,  and 
Augustus  wished  to  emphasize  the  fact,  as  indeed  he  did  in  the  Monumentum 
Ancyranum,  in  other  monuments,  and  on  coins.  "It  was  under  the  influence 
of  the  great  triumphs  that  Virgil  had  given  the  promise  to  celebrate  the  wars 
of  Caesar  :  how  could  he  have  kept  it  in  a  time,  which  was  the  antithesis  of 
the  past  age  of  terror,  when  the  prince  was  actually  inaugurating  his  pro- 
gramme of  peace  for  it,  by  materially  reducing  the  number  of  the  legions  ? " 
Norden  fortifies  his  position  by  reference  to  Horace's  last  ode  (iv.  15  Phoelnts 
volentem),  in  which  he  finds  a  clear  interpretation  of  Mrgil's  motives  side  by 
side  with  the  more  obvious  reference  to  the  Acneid  {Troiamque  et  Anchisen  et 
alinae  Progeniem  Veneris  canemus).  I  can  only  say  that  I  have  a  fundamentally 
different  idea  of  poetry— a  higher  idea,  I  think. 


CONTEMPORARIES  83 

and  a  grandeur,  one  in  which  he  might  express  his  inner- 
most thought  upon  what  meant  most  to  him,  his  thought 
upon  his  country  and  the  life  of  man.  Does  Aeneas  fulfil 
these  requirements  ?  The  theme  is  hardly  promising,  a 
mass  of  obscure,  straggling,  and  scattered  stories,  gathered 
accidentally  around  a  Trojan  of  the  second  rank,  who  has 
no  individuality,  no  renown,  no  legend  in  fact. 

It  is  clear  that  a  poem  about  Aeneas  may  be  as  dead  as 
any  Thebaid  \  it  may  be  as  petty  as  any  legend  of  Alba, 
and  as  lacking  in  unity  as  the  Hcrakleid  which  Aristotle 
condemned.  But  the  Aeneid  is  one,  it  is  "  grand,"  it  interests, 
it  expresses  the  Roman  people,  and  it  rises  from  time  to 
time  to  be  the  utterance  of  humanity.  It  absorbs  as  much 
of  Greek  mythology  as  the  most  exacting  taste  could 
demand  ;  it  is  full  of  the  ancient  life  and  legends  of  Rome 
and  Italy — so  full  as  to  make  it  the  special  study  of  anti- 
quaries for  centuries,  and  yet  it  is  never  borne  down  by  its 
weight  of  learning  ;  it  touches  and  illumines  the  history  of 
Rome  from  Rome's  first  origin  in  the  decrees  of  Fate  down 
to  the  achievement  of  the  universal  Roman  peace  under 
Augustus ;  it  does  more  for  Augustus  than  any  panegyric 
ever  did  or  could  do  for  any  monarch  ;  and  it  has  been  the 
favourite  poem  of  all  Europe  for  eighteen  centuries,  express- 
ing for  the  most  living  races  of  mankind  more  than  any 
single  work  of  one  man  all  they  have  felt  of  love  and 
sorrow. 

The  poem  finds  its  unity  in  its  central  thought ;  it  is  the 
poem  of  the  birth  of  a  great  people,  of  a  great  work  done  to 
found  a  great  race,  of  a  spirit  and  temper  brought  into  the 
world  which  should  in  time  enable  that  race  to  hold  sway 
over  the  whole  world  and  be  to  the  whole  world,  with  all  its 
tribes  and  tongues,  the  pledge  and  the  symbol  of  its  union 
and  its  peace.  It  is  not  the  story  of  the  life  and  adventures 
of  Aeneas — there  were  those  who  called  it  the  gesta  popiili 
Romani}  a  name  which  shows  a  fine  sympathy  with  the 
poet's  feeling,  as  if  all  the  deeds  of  the  Roman  people  sprang 
from  and  were  summed  up  in  the  work  of  one  man.     It  is 

^  So  Servius,  ad  Aai.   vi,   752.     On  this  see  Patin,  La  Poisie  latine,  i.  199 ; 
Myers,  Essays  Classical,  p.  129. 


84  VIRGIL 

the  story  of  the  planting  in  Italy  of  the  seed  from  which 
came  Rome — 

Tantae  molis  erat  Romanam  condere  gentem  ^  (A.  i.  33). 

The  poet  looks  down  the  history  of  his  race  from  Aeneas, 
he  looks  back  through  it  from  Augustus,  and  he  finds  it 
one,  one  story  telling  of  one  spirit.  It  is  one  spirit,  and 
the  same  spirit,  that  brought  Aeneas  from  Troy  to  the 
Tiber;  that  carried  the  Roman  kings  through  the  early 
wars  of  Rome  ;  that  sacrificed  in  Brutus  a  father's  affection 
to  love  of  country ;  that  took  Decii  and  Scipios  from  victory 
to  victory ;  that  put  Carthage  and  Alexandria,  with  all  they 
meant  of  cruelty  and  disorder,  under  the  feet  of  Rome ; 
and  that  gave  Augustus  the  world  to  pacify  and  to  re- 
generate. Virgil  finds  still  more  in  it.  He  finds  here  his 
philosophy  of  history,  the  unity  of  the  story  of  mankind, 
the  drama  of  the  progress  of  man  from  war,  disorder,  and 
barbarism  to  peace  and  humanity.  And  he  finds  in  this 
story  of  Aeneas  a  clue  to  the  story  of  every  man,  the 
linking  of  divine  decree  with  human  suffering  and  service, 
something  to  explain  waste  of  life  and  failure  of  hope  by 
a  broader  view  of  heaven's  purposes  and  earth's  needs,  a 
justification  of  the  ways  of  God  to  men,  not  complete, 
only  tentative,  but  yet  an  anodyne  and  an  encouragement 
in  an  unintelligible  world. ^ 

^  "  So  vast  the  effort  it  cost  to  build  up  the  Roman  nation  "  (Conington). 

2  It  is  curious  and  disappointing  to  find  that  so  great  a  scholar  as 
Wilamowitz  -  Moellendorff  can  write  as  he  does  of  the  Aeiieid  (Reden  u. 
Vortrdge^,  p.  266) :  "  Das  Heldengedicht,  an  dem  jetzt  sein  Ruhm,  bei  uns 
seine  Unterschatzung  hangt,  ist  ihm  wohl  wider  bessere  Einsicht  durch 
Maecenas  und  Augustus  abgenotigt  worden."  The  fact  is  that,  for  whatever 
reason,  the  Germans  do  not  enjoy  the  poetry  of  Virgil  as  the  French  do,  and 
to  be  a  sound  critic  of  a  poet  it  is  necessary  to  enjoy  him. 


CHAPTER   IV 
LITERATURE.— 3.  THE  MYTHS  OF  AENEAS  i 

"  There  is  in  genius  that  alchemy  which  converts  all  metals  into  gold." 

Caklyle,  Essay  on  Schiller. 

WHEN  Virgil  chose  Aeneas  as  his  theme  his  choice 
was  not  idly  made.  Aeneas  played  a  part,  not  per- 
haps of  the  highest  importance,  but  still  not  an 
insignificant  one,  in  the  war  of  Troy.  Though  he  does  not 
accomplish  very  much,  nor  waken  any  very  keen  interest, 
yet  the  Iliad  seems  to  recognize  in  him  a  man  of  heroic 
nature  and  a  man  with  a  destiny.  Consequently  a  poet 
who  would  treat  of  him  again  has  the  Iliad  behind  him, 
and  stands  as  it  were  in  the  succession  of  Homer.  His 
theme  is  at  once  Homeric,  and  epic.  So  much  might 
perhaps  be  said  of  Sarpedon  or  of  Teucer,  but  for  Virgil 
these  heroes  would  have  lacked  what  he  clearly  desired 
in  his  theme  —  relevance  to  Rome.  But  with  Aeneas  the 
case  was  different,  for,  however  it  had  happened,  a  mass 
of  legend  had  grown  up  around  him,  which  by  degrees 
assumed  some  sort  of  consistency  and  at  last  became  a 
more  or  less  fixed  tradition.  Step  by  step  it  could  be 
shown  how  Aeneas  had  made  his  way  westward  till  he 
reached  Latium,  and  though  at  one  time  it  looked  as 
if  Sardinia  might  be  a  further  stage  in  his  westward 
journey,  it  was  agreed  that  Latium  was  really  his  goal. 
Here  he,  or  his  son,  or  grandson, — Romus,  Romulus,  or 
some  such  person, — had  founded  Rome,  or,  if  not  Rome, 
Lavinium.  At  all  events,  if  not  Aeneas  himself,  some  direct 
descendant  of  the  hero  had  eventually  founded  Rome,  and 
though  chronologers  might  debate  the  number  of  intervening 
generations,  there  was  an  undoubted  filiation  between  Rome 

*  The  reader  may  consult  the  work  of  Albrecht  Fcirstemann,  Zur  Geschichte  des 
Aeneas/iiythos,  Magdeburg,  1894. 

85 


86  VIRGIL 

and  Troy.  Thus  in  Aeneas  Virgil  had  a  theme,  if  not 
thoroughly  Roman,  still  closely  connected  with  Rome — a 
theme  which  in  his  hands  might  at  last  grow  to  be  intensely 
national.  At  the  same  time,  he  would  have  indeed  to  make 
dry  bones  live  ;  for  though  the  story  had  been  accepted  by 
the  Romans  and  even  embodied  in  diplomatic  documents, 
it  was  in  no  sense  really  popular,  but  was  the  creation  of 
Greek  scholars,  evolved  from  a  combination  of  discrepant 
local  tales  by  a  rationalizing  and  rather  dull  philology. 
Virgil  made  the  story  live,  and  so  effectually  that  his  reader 
is  pursued  by  his  influence  even  into  the  conscientious  pages 
of  Dionysius  of  Halicarnassus,  and  finds  it  hard  to  imagine 
what  the  story  was  before  Virgil  took  it  in  hand.  To  strip 
from  it  all  that  he  gave  it  is  hard,  but  by  doing  so  we  may 
gain  a  clearer  appreciation  of  Virgil's  greatness,  and  for  this 
it  is  worth  while  to  read  Dionysius,  and  to  survey  the 
confusing  collection  of  fictions  which  he  has  preserved  for 
us.  Let  us  first  see  what  Homer  says  of  Aeneas,  and  then 
follow  him  through  literature  and  legend  down  to  Virgil's 
day. 

I 

Of  the  passages  in  the  Iliad  dealing  with  Aeneas  the 
most  important  belong  to  the  strata  of  the  poem  which 
critics  pronounce  to  be  late.  Aeneas  comes  into  conflict 
with  Diomedes,  with  Idomeneus,  and  finally  with  Achilles. 
The  last  of  these  encounters  is  for  our  present  purpose  the 
most  significant.  It  occurs  in  the  twentieth  book,  with  which 
it  is  only  loosely  connected,  while  with  the  story  proper  it 
has  hardly  any  connexion  at  all.  The  real  hero  of  the 
passage  seems  not  to  be  Achilles  so  much  as  Aeneas  himself, 
for  whose  glorification  it  is  believed  to  have  been  inserted  by 
the  author,  whoever  he  was.  The  situation  is  this.  Achilles 
has  been  roused  to  fury  by  the  death  of  Patroclus,  and  he 
starts  from  the  Greek  camp  to  find  Hector  (1.  75).  The  first 
enemy  he  meets  is  Aeneas,  and  here  the  story  begins  to 
waver.  We  are  told  that  Apollo,  in  the  form  of  one  of 
Priam's  sons,  urged  Aeneas  to  face  Achilles  (1.  79),  but 
later  on  (1.  156  f)  Aeneas  seems  to  be  acting  independently. 


THE  MYTHS  OF  AENEAS  87 

However  that  may  be,  Achilles  is  strangely  unlike  himself. 
He  had  rushed  into  battle  furious  ;  now  he  is  sarcastic,  and, 
meeting  Aeneas,  he  stops  and  begins  by  sneering  at  his 
position  in  Troy  : — 

"  Aeneas,  why  dost  thou  advance  so  far  from  out  the 
crowd  to  stand  here  ?  Doth  thy  spirit  bid  thee  fight  with 
me,  because  thou  hopest  to  rule  over  the  horse-curbing 
Trojans  with  the  dignity  of  Priam  ?  But  even  if  thou  slay 
me,  not  therefore  will  Priam  put  his  honour  in  thy  hand ; 
there  be  his  own  sons,  and  he  is  sound  of  mind  and  dotes 
not  yet  "  (xx  ;   177-183).^ 

He  goes  on  to  remind  him  of  a  previous  meeting  when 
Aeneas  had  run  away,  and  advises  him  to  go  back  and 
"mingle  with  the  multitude  before  evil  befall  thee,  and 
encounter  me  not :  the  fool  is  wise  too  late."  To  this  Aeneas 
replies  : — 

"  Pelides,  think  not  to  frighten  me  with  big  words,  like  a 
child ;  well  skilled  am  I  also  to  speak  with  jibe  or  with 
courteous  phrase.  We  know  each  other's  race,  and  each 
other's  parents  ...  I  style  myself  the  son  of  great-hearted 
Anchises,  and  my  mother  is  Aphrodite.  .  .  .  But  if  thou 
wouldest  know  my  generation,  I  will  tell  it  thee,  a  genera- 
tion known  of  many  men  ;  first  of  my  line  was  Dardanus, 
begotten  of  cloud-compelling  Zeus  ;  and  he  builded 
Dardania,  for  holy  Ilium  was  not  yet  builded  in  the  plain, 
city  of  mortal  men,  but  they  dwelt  in  the  skirts  of  many- 
fountained  Ida,  And  Dardanus  begat  a  son,  Erichthonius 
the  king,  most  opulent  of  men.  [Here  follows  a  further 
digression  upon  Erichthonius'  miraculous  horses.]  .  .  . 
And  Erichthonius  begat  Tros,  king  of  the  Trojans;  and 
to  Tros  were  born  three  blameless  sons,  Ilus  and  Assaracus 
and  Ganymedes.  [Here  follow  the  pedigrees  of  Priam  and 
Aeneas ;  Ilus,  Laomedon,  Priam ;  and  Assaracus,  Capys, 
Anchises,  Aeneas.]  And  now  no  more ;  let  us  not  prattle 
on,  like  children  (1.  244)  .  .  .  come  therefore  (1.  258),  let  us 
speedily  make  trial  of  each  other's  force  with  the  brazen 
spear.' 

At   the   end   of    the   previous   book    Achilles    had    held 

^  I  quote  from  Purves'  translation  throughout. 


S8  VIRGIL 

converse  with  his  horses,  and  when  Xanthus  "  the  twinkling- 
footed  steed "  had  prophesied  his  death,  he  rejoined, 
"  Xanthus,  why  nam'st  thou  death  ?  It  needed  not.  Full 
well  I  know  myself  that  my  fate  is  to  die  here,  far  from  my 
father  and  from  my  mother;  but  yet  I  will  not  hold  my  hand 
until  I  have  given  the  Trojans  surfeit  of  war"  (xix.  420-3). 
But  now  it  would  seem  he  has  changed  his  mind,  and 
"  holds  his  hand "  to  hear  "  a  generation  known  of  many 
men  " ;  and  when  Aeneas  begins  the  battle  by  hurling  his 
spear,  Achilles  "  held  his  shield  " — the  very  shield  on  which 
Hephaestus  had  wrought  the  wonderful  pictures,  it  should 
be  remembered — "  away  from  him  with  his  firm  hand,  /« 
fear;  for  he  thought  that  the  long  spear  of  great-hearted 
Aeneas  would  lightly  pierce  it  through."  Then  he  hurls  his 
own  spear  with  little  effect.  Hereupon  Aeneas  picks  up  a 
huge  stone,  and  "  then  had  Aeneas  stricken  him  with  the  stone 
in  his  assault  on  helmet  or  on  death-averting  shield,  and 
Pelides  had  come  upon  him  and  taken  his  life  with  the 
blade,  had  not  Poseidon,  shaker  of  the  land,  been  quick 
to  see."  Poseidon,  not  usually  a  friend  of  Trojans,  addresses 
Hera,  as  little  their  friend,  and  they  both  agree  that  Aeneas 
should  be  rescued.  So  Poseidon  "lifted  Aeneas  from  the 
ground  and  whirled  him  away ;  and  many  a  line  of  men 
and  many  a  line  of  horses  did  Aeneas  pass  over,  as  he 
bounded  from  the  hand  of  the  god  ;  and  he  came  to  the 
verge  of  the  tumultuous  war,"  where  Poseidon  had  a  word 
for  him. 

So  much  for  the  fight  of  Achilles  and  Aeneas,  but 
Poseidon's  words  to  Hera  deserve  study.  "  Ah  me,  I  am  in 
pain,"  he  says,  "  because  of  great-hearted  Aeneas,  who  soon 
shall  fall  before  Pelides,  and  go  down  to  the  house  of  death  ; 
foolish,  who  listened  to  the  biddings  of  far-fatal  Apollo ;  but 
he  shall  not  deliver  him  from  destruction.  Ah,  why  should 
he  stand  thus  in  much  sorrow,  without  a  cause,  himself 
guiltless,  by  the  fault  of  others — he  who  ever  renders 
acceptable  gifts  to  the  gods  who  hold  wide  heaven  ?  Come, 
let  us  rescue  him  from  the  stroke  of  death,  lest  Cronides 
[Zeus]  be  angry  should  Achilles  slay  him ;  also  it  is  his 
fate  to   come   off   safe,  that   the   line   of  Dardanus    perish 


THE  MYTHS  OF  AENEAS  89 

not  without  seed,  and  vanish  away ;  Dardanus,  whom 
Cronides  loved  above  all  his  children,  who  were  born  of 
himself  and  of  mortal  women  :  for  Cronion  [Zeus]  loveth 
not  the  race  of  Priam  any  longer,  but  in  days  hereafter 
the  might  of  Aeneas  shall  rule  over  the  Trojans,  he, 
and  his  children's  children  that  shall  come  after  him " 
(xx.  293-308). 

We  may  dismiss  the  question  as  to  whether  Poseidon  is 
quite  clear  about  the  scope  of  Fate,  and  do  no  more  than 
remark  the  Virgilian  character  of /zV/^j-  which  the  god  gives 
to  the  hero.  Two  points  stand  prominently  out  in  this 
speech  and  the  passage  to  which  it  supplies  the  key.  First, 
Aeneas  belongs  to  the  younger  branch  of  the  royal  family, 
and  there  is  jealousy  between  the  two  branches.  We  learn 
this  even  more  explicitly  in  another  passage  (xiii.  460  f.), 
where  Deiphobus  "  found  Aeneas  standing  on  the  battle's 
verge ;  for  he  was  ever  wroth  with  divine  Priam,  because  he 
honoured  him  not,  though  valiant  among  men " ;  a  little 
later,  Aeneas  found  the  people  following  him  to  battle  ''as 
sheep  follow  the  ram,  when  they  come  from  the  pasture  to 
drink,  and  the  shepherd's  heart  is  proud,  so  did  Aeneas' 
heart  rejoice  within  him,  when  he  saw  the  company  of  the 
people  following "  (xiii.  492-5).  Second,  the  words  of  the 
god  imply  a  tradition  that  the  supremacy  had  actually 
passed  from  Priam's  family  to  Aeneas'  line,  and  this  will 
bear  examination. 

It  is  quite  clear  that  the  encounter  of  Achilles  and  Aeneas 
is  in  itself  entirely  trivial,  and  that,  moreover,  it  blocks  the 
progress  of  the  story.  What  is  its  explanation  ?  It  is 
generally  pronounced  to  be  a  late  insertion  in  the  poem,^ 
due  to  the  desire  of  a  Homerid  poet  to  please  some  dynasty 
or  great  family  of  the  Troad,  who  wished  to  connect  them- 
selves with  the  founders  of  Troy,  and  fixed  upon  Aeneas  as 

^  See  Ameis-Hentze,  Anhang  zu  Homers  Ilias,  vol.  ii.  (1879-86),  Introduction 
to  book  XX,  for  a  conspectus  of  the  views  of  critics  ;  and  also  Leaf,  Companion  to 
the  Iliad,  Introduction,  pp.  24,  25,  and  on  the  passages  quoted.  Sainte-Beuve, 
Etude  sur  Virgile,  in  his  excellent  chapter  on  Aeneas  in  1  lomer  (iv),  does  not 
do  justice  to  this  theory.  Mr  Andrew  liang  {Homer  and  his  A^e,  p.  324)  admits 
the  passage  to  be  an  interpolation.  Schwegler,  Komische  Ceschichte,  i.  279-99, 
may  also  be  consulted  with  advantage. 


go  VIRGIL 

their  ancestor,^  just  as  the  great  families  of  the  Ionian  cities 
traced  their  descent  from  Neleus  of  Pylos,  or  Codrus,  king  of 
Athens.2  This  explanation  seems  satisfactory,  and  we  find 
it  corroborated  by  one  or  two  local  traditions  of  the  Troad. 
Dionysius  (i.  47)  says  that,  when  Aeneas  sailed  for  the  west, 
he  left  Ascanius,  his  eldest  son,  behind,  and  Ascanius  ruled 
over  a  people  in  the  district  known  as  Dascylitis,  where  lake 
Ascania  is,  but  afterwards  with  Hector's  son,  Scamandrius, 
he  moved  back  to  Troy.  This  may  have  been  a  local  story, 
or  perhaps  some  grammarian's  attempt  at  history.^  However, 
Strabo  (607-8)  tells  us  definitely  that  at  Scepsis  in  the  Troad 
the  tradition  was  clear.*  Old  Scepsis  was  higher  up  on  Ida, 
but  Scamandrius,  Hector's  son,  and  Ascanius,  Aeneas'  son, 
brought  the  people  down  to  the  Scepsis  known  to  history, 
where  both  their  families  were  "  kings "  ^  for  a  long  time. 
But  this  story,  Strabo  continues,  does  not  agree  with  the 
popular  accounts  to  the  effect  that  Aeneas  was  spared  on 
account  of  his  quarrel  with  Priam  (//.  xiii.  460,  cited  above) 
and  went  westward ;  while  Homer  himself  agrees  neither 
with  the  one  nor  the  other,  "  for  he  shows  that  Aeneas 
remained  in  Troy,  and  received  the  sovereignty,  and  left  the 
succession  to  his  children's  children,  the  family  of  Priam 
being  extinguished  ;    *  for  Cronion    loveth   not   the  race  of 

^  Keller  remarks  how  well  the  poet  knew  the  ground  and  the  old  folk-tales  of 
the  region  [Lafidessagen),  and  concludes  that  the  whole  lay  {Lied)  comes  from- an 
old  legend,  and  is  designed  for  the  glory  of  Aeneas,  as  ancestor  of  a  house 
established  on  Mount  Ida  for  centuries  after  the  fall  of  Troy. 

*  See  e.g.  Hdt.  i.  147  ;  Strabo,  c.  633. 

'  .See  Dion.  H.  i.  53  for  a  mass  of  grammarians'  efforts  at  once  to  keep  Aeneas 
in  the  Troad  and  to  send  him  to  Italy — were  there  two  heroes  called  Aeneas,  or 
did  the  genuine  one  first  go  to  Italy  and  then  return  ? 

*  Strabo  was  a  man  of  real  discernment,  as  can  be  seen  in  his  chapters  on 
Scepsis,  "a  place  so  called  either  for  some  other  reason  or  from  its  being  a  con- 
spicuous place  {irepiaKeirTov),  if  it  is  right  to  find  in  Greek  words  the  etymology 
of  old-time  barbarian  names  "  (607).  His  criticism  of  the  stories  of  Aeneas,  in 
view  of  Homer's  actual  words,  is  beyond  most  of  the  ancient  authorities.  The 
account  of  the  connexion  of  Aristotle's  library  with  Scepsis,  with  which  he 
continues  his  record  of  the  place,  is  most  interesting  and  important.  Dionysius 
(i.  53)  denies  that  Aeneas'  ruling  over  the  Trojans  implies  his  ruling  in  the  Troad  ; 
"was  it  not  possible  for  him  still  to  rule  over  the  Trojans,  whom  he  took  with 
him,  even  if  they  had  a  city  elsewhere  ?  "     Dionysius  finds  it  easy  to  be  orthodox. 

®  The  name,  of  course,  rather  implies  a  special  hereditary  priesthood  than 
royalty  in  any  modern  sense. 


THE  MYTHS  OF  AENEAS  91 

Priam  any  longer,  but  in  days  hereafter  the  might  of  Aeneas 
shall  rule  over  the  Trojans,  he  and  his  children's  children 
that  shall  come  after  him '  (//.  xx.  306,  as  cited)  .  .  .  Still 
less  does  he  agree  with  those  who  say  Aeneas  wandered  as 
far  as  Italy  and  make  him  end  his  life  there.  There  are 
some,  however,  who  write,  '  The  race  of  Aeneas  shall  reign 
over  all,  and  his  children's  children,'  meaning  the  Romans."^ 
This  was  of  course  a  mere  violation  of  the  text,  which  is 
confirmed  by  a  closely  similar  prophecy  in  the  Homeric 
hymn  to  Aphrodite,  spoken  by  the  goddess  herself  to 
Anchises.2 

The  introduction,  then,  of  Aeneas'  fight  with  Achilles 
and  his  rescue  by  Poseidon  is  explained  by  the  existence  of 
this  dynasty  or  sacred  family  in  the  Troad  with  its  tradition 
of  descent  from  Aeneas.  And  in  the  same  way  we  may 
explain  the  somewhat  similar,  though  less  feeble,  story  of 
his  fight  with  Diomedes  and   his   rescue  by  Aphrodite  and 

^  It  may  be  well  to  put  side  by  side  the  two  versions  of  the  passage  from 
the  Iliad— 

Nw  5^  57)  AiVeiao  ^[t]  Tpd>e<Tcriv  dvd^ei, 

Kal  iraLSojv  TralSes,  roi  Kev  ixerbtnade  yevcovrai  (Homer). 

Nvv  5^  5^]  Alueiao  yevos  TravTeacriv  dpd^et 

Kal  iraidwv  iraides  (Anon.  ap.  Strah.)- 

It  will  be  noticed  that  Virgil's  rendering  is  nearer  the  latter — 

Hie  domtts  Aenaeae  cunctis  dominabitur  oris 

et  nati  natoruni  et  qui  nascentur  ab  illis  {Aen.  iii.  97). 
Servius  says  Homer  took  the  words  from  Orpheus,  as  Orpheus  had  taken  them 
from  the  oracle  of  Apollo.     Long  after  Virgil,  Quintus  of  Smyrna  used  the  old 
Homeric  prophecy  again — 

Tov   yap  OeaKparov  eari  deu>v  ipiKvSei  ^ovKy 

Qv/j-^piv  eV  evpvpeedpov  aVo  'S.dvdoto  ixoKovra 

Tev^efiev  iepov  daru  Kal  ecrcro/xevoiai.v  dyr)Tbv 

dvOpuiiroii,  avTOv  d^  iroXvcnripeeaaL  ^poToicri 

KoipaveeiV  iK  rod  5^  yevos  fxeroTnaOev  dvd^eiv 

dxpis  eir'  dvroKlTjv  re  Kai  aKap-drov  ovaw  ijovs. 

Posthottierica,  xiii.  336. 
*  H.  Aphr.  197  (with  note  of  Allen  and  Sikes) — 

2oi  6'  Icrrai  0i\os  mos,  8s  iv  Tpweffaiv  dvd^ei, 

Kal  iratSey  iraiSecfft,  Biafiirepii  eK7e7aoKrat. 
Hesiod,  T/ieoj^ony  1008,  records  the  birth  of  Aeneas,  the  child  of  Cythereia  and 
Anchises,  but  makes  no  prophecy  about  him.  He  then  adds  that  Circe  bore  to 
Odysseus  sons  named  Agrios  and  Latinos  who  dwelt  far  in  a  recess  among  the 
islands  and  ruled  over  all  the  Etruscans.  It  is  open  to  any  one  to  question  the 
authenticity  and  the  date  of  these  latter  lines. 


92  VIRGIL 

Apollo,  which  we  find  in  book  v.  But  in  the  meantime 
we  have  discovered,  with  some  assistance  from  Strabo,  that 
Homer  (if  we  may  use  the  name  again  as  the  Greeks  used  it) 
knew  nothing  of  Aeneas'  adventures  in  any  western  region, 
near  or  far,  but  thought  of  him  as  continuing  the  race  of 
Dardanus  in  Dardanus'  own  land,  which,  in  spite  of  Virgil,^ 
was  not  Italy  but  the  Troad.  So  far  only  does  Homer  stand 
with  Virgil,  that,  hymning  a  patron's  ancestor,  he  makes  that 
ancestor  a  great  warrior,  great  enough  to  face  Achilles  and 
Diomedes,  and  dear  enough  to  the  gods,  at  once  for  his  piety 
and  his  descent,  to  be  rescued  by  miracle  and  reserved  to 
fight  again,  "  when  Achilles  dies  and  finds  his  fate  "  (//.  xx. 
337),  and  to  found  a  line  of  kings.^ 

II 

The  problem  now  rises  as  to  how,  in  the  face  of  the  words 
of  Homer  and  of  the  traditions  of  the  Troad,  the  story  grew 
which  brought  Aeneas  to  Italy  and  to  Rome.  The  growth 
of  the  story  it  is  comparatively  easy  to  trace,  but  why  it 
should  have  grown  at  all  is  not  so  clear.  No  doubt  the 
natural  passion  most  men  feel  for  pedigrees  of  their  own 
and  of  other  people  plays  a  great  part  here,  and  so  does  the 
Greek  habit  of  off-hand  etymologizing.  The  connexion  of 
Aeneas  with  Aphrodite  is  also  an  important  factor,  though 
the  origin  of  this  requires  some  explanation. 

First,  let  us  see  how  Aeneas  left  Troy.  Various  accounts 
of  this  are  quoted  by  Dionysius.  Menecrates  of  Xanthus, 
for  example,  began  his  tale  with  Achilles'  burial,  and  went 
on  to  narrate  that  Aeneas,  from  hatred  of  Priam  and  Paris, 
betrayed  the  city  to  the  Achaeans.  This  version  was  hardly  / 
likely  to  be  productive   in  literature,  and  it  will  suffice  to 

'  Aen.  iii.  163  Est  locus,  Hesperiam  Graii  cognomine  dicunt  .   .   . 
167  Hae  nobis propriae  sedes,  hinc  Dardanus  onus. 

^  A  scholiast  on  //.  xx.  307  tells  us  that  Acusilaus  of  Argos  (a  logographer 
of  the  sixth  century,  B.C.)  discovered  the  real  reason  of  the  Trojan  war  in 
Aphrodite's  ambition  for  her  son.  She  set  the  whole  war  on  foot  simply  and 
solely  to  transfer  the  sovereignty  from  the  house  of  Priam  to  that  of  Aeneas — a 
very  suggestive  interpretation,  which  may  be  illustrated  at  large  from  the  history 
of  Greek  cities  and  their  tyrants  and  factions  —  (K7)Ti  'ZvKoau.vroi  ei'pi/xw/j/a 
(Strabo,  c.  638). 


THE  MYTHS  OF  AENEAS  93 

say  merely  that  Servius  believed  Virgil  knew  of  it,  that 
Dares  adopted  it,  and  that  Gower  used  it  in  his  Confessio 
Aviantis}-  The  next  story  is  more  famous  and  more  fruit- 
ful. "  Sophocles,  the  tragic  poet,"  says  Dionysius  "  in  his 
drama  of  Laocoon  has  represented  Aeneas  on  the .  eve  of 
the  city's  capture  as  repairing  to  Ida,  for  so  he  was  bidden 
by  his  father  Anchises,  in  remembrance  of  the  charge  of 
Aphrodite ;  while  in  view  of  what  had  just  befallen  the 
family  of  Laocoon,  he  conjectured  the  approaching  destruc- 
tion of  the  city.  His  iambics,  spoken  by  a  messenger, 
are  as  follows : — '  And  now  Aeneas,  son  of  the  goddess,  is 
at  the  gates ;  on  his  shoulders  he  bears  his  father,  the  matter 
dripping  on  his  robe  of  byssos  from  his  back,  burnt  by 
the  thunderbolt ;  and  round  about  are  all  the  company  of 
his  servants ;  and  with  him  follows  a  multitude,  beyond 
what  thou  thinkest,  of  Phrygians  who  desire  to  be  of  this 
colony.' "  2  This  is  perhaps  the  only  known  reference  to 
Aeneas  in  Greek  tragedy.  Xenophon  adds  a  little  more 
information.  "  Aeneas  saved  the  gods  of  his  father  and  of 
his  mother  (tov<;  iraTpojov^  koc  fxtjTpcpov^  ^  6eov^),  and  saved  his 
father  too,  and  won  thereby  a  name  for  piety,  so  that  the 
enemy  granted  to  him  alone  of  all  whom  they  conquered 
in  Troy  immunity  from  being  pillaged."* 

But  neither  of  these  accounts  satisfies  Dionysius  of 
Halicarnassus,^  and  he  gives  us  "the  most  reliable  story"  as 
told  by  Hellanicus  in  his    Troica — an  explicit  narrative  of 

^  See  Chassang,  Histoire  du  Roman,  p.  364.    Servius,   ad  Aen.   i.  242,  647. 
Antenor  more  commonly  is  credited  with  this  betrayal.     Cf.  Strabo  c.  608. 

*  Dion.  H.  Ant.  Rom.  i.  48.     Soph.  Frag.  344  (Nauck).     There  are  some 
slight  variations  in  reading. 

For  Kepawlov  vutov,  cf.  A.  Aphr.  287-9 — 

Et  Of  Kev  e'fetTTTjs  koI  eirev^eai  atftpovL  Ovfu^ 
iv  (piXoTrjTi  fiiyrjvai  iuaTe(pdvC{>  Kvdepeir], 
ZeJs  <T€  xoXwcra/iei'os  ^aXe'et  ^poKoevri.  KepavvQ — 
and  Aeneid  ii.  647 — 

lam  pridem  invisus  divis  et  inutilis  annos 
demoror,  ex  quo  me  divom  fater  alque  homintim  rex 
fulminis  adjiavit  ventis  et  contigit  igni, 
'  Who  were  these?  *  Xen.  de  Venationc,  i.  15. 

^  "  Ce  bon  Denys  d'Halicarnasse,"  Boissier  calls  him,  and  the  phrase  is  in 
itself  a  suggestive  criticism. 


94  VIRGIL 

how  Aeneas  managed  to  hold  the  Acropoh's ;  and  how 
when  great  numbers  of  Trojans  had  found  their  way  to  him, 
he  successfully  evacuated  it  and  fell  back  on  Mount  Ida, 
resolved  to  wait  there  till  the  Greeks  sailed  for  home ;  and 
how,  when  the  Greeks,  instead,  prepared  to  attack  him,  he 
made  a  treaty  with  them  binding  himself  to  leave  the 
Troad ;  and  how  accordingly,  after  building  a  fleet,  he 
crossed  to  the  promontory  of  Pallene  in  Europe.^  So  began 
the  wanderings  of  Aeneas ;  and  he  was  to  wander  far,  and 
to  found  many  cities,  and  to  die  and  be  buried  in  many 
places,  before  ever  he  reached  Latium. 

To  begin  at  the  beginning,  Dionysius  quotes  "  Cephalon 
of  Gergithes  "  ^  to  the  effect  that  Aeneas  died  in  Thrace,  and 
that  one  of  his  four  sons,  Romus  by  name,  went  to  Italy  and 
founded  Rome.  Cephalon  was  "  an  ancient  and  reputable 
writer,"  he  says,  but  Athcnaeus  informs  us  that  the  real 
author  of  Cephalon's  Troica  was  Hegesianax  of  Alexandria 
in  the  Troad,  a  contemporary  of  Flamininus.^  That  a 
Greek  writer  of  so  late  a  day  should  tell  a  story  so  different 
from  the  orthodox  tradition  is  very  significant.  By  and  by, 
we  find  that  Aeneas  got  as  far  as  Arcadia,  and  lived  at 
Orchomenus  or  "  the  Island,  so  called,  though  in  the  heart 
of  the  country,  because  it  is  surrounded  by  marshes  and 
river,"  and  there  apparently  he  died  after  founding  Capyae 
(named  after  his  ancestor  Capys) — or  else  he  went  to 
Hesperia  and  became  the  father  of  Romulus.*  In  fact,  his 
tomb  was  to  be  found  in  so  many  places,  that  Dionysius  is 
afraid  it  may  disconcert  students,  "  as  it  is  impossible  that 
the  same  man  should  be  buried  in  more  than  one  place. 
But  let  them  reflect,"  he  goes  on,  "  that  this  difficulty  is 
common  to  many  heroes,  especially  those  who  have  had 
remarkable  fortunes  and  lived  lives  of  wandering ;  and  let 
them  learn  that  while  one  place  only  receives  the  actual 
body,   memorials    have    been    raised    in    many  places   from 

1  Dion.  H.  i.  46,  47. 

*  "  The  Gergithes  who  were  left  behind  as  a  remnant  of  the  ancient  Teucrians," 
Hdt.  V.  122. 

3  Dion.  H.  i.  49.  72  ;    Athen.  ix,  49,  p.  393  ;    Schwegler,  Rom.  Gesch.  i.  303. 

*  Dion.  H.  i.  49. 


THE  MYTHS  OF  AENEAS  95 

goodwill  for  kindness  rendered,  especially  if  any  of  the 
hero's  race  have  survived,  or  because  the  hero  founded  the 
particular  city,  or  stayed  there  a  long  time  and  was  a 
benefactor."  And  in  this  way  he  explains  the  graves  of 
Aeneas  in  Ilium,  Bebrycia,  Phrygia,  Pallene,  Arcadia,  and 
Sicily  and  "  many  other  places,"  where  after  death  "  he  was 
honoured  with  mounds  and  much  building  of  tombs."  ^ 

We  have,  however,  still  better  evidence  of  the  course 
of  his  wanderings  than  his  various  tombs,  for  as  the  son 
of  x^phrodite  he  built  temples  to  his  mother  wherever  he 
went.  We  learn  from  Dionysius  that  he  founded  temples 
to  Aphrodite  at  Pallene,  Cythera,  Zacynthus,  Buthrotum, 
and  other  places,  while  at  Leucas  and  Actium,  and  on  the 
river  Elymus  in  Sicily,  the  temples  bore  his  own  name 
coupled  with  his  mother's — being  dedicated  to  Aphrodite 
Aineias.  Moreover,  his  journey  is  commemorated  by  a 
town  Aineia  on  Pallene,  by  Capyae  in  Arcadia,  by  the 
"  race-course  of  Aphrodite  and  Aeneas  "  (with  wooden  images 
of  themselves)  on  Zacynthus,  by  a  heroon  of  Aeneas  in 
Ambracia  (with  a  small  archaic  image),  by  the  brazen 
cauldrons  "  with  very  archaic  inscriptions "  which  he  set 
up  at  Dodona,  by  the  harbour  of  Anchises  and  a  hill  called 
Troia  at  Buthrotum,  by  the  harbour  of  Aphrodite  on  the 
lapygian  promontory  where  he  first  landed  in  Italy,  and 
by  his  foundations  of  Aegesta  and  Elymus  in  Sicily.^  All 
this  Dionysius  tells  us,^  and  other  writers  add  the  island 
of  Aenaria  off  Cumae,^  the  hill  Anchisia  with  a  tomb  of 
Anchises  at  Mantinea,^  and  the  towns  Aphl'odisias  and  Elis 
in  Arcadia.^ 

It  is,  as  Dionysius  remarks,  quite  clear  that  a  man  cannot 
die   and  be  buried   in  more  than  one  place,  but  we   shall 

^  Dion.  H.  i.  54.     Jupiter  himself  had  at  least  one  grave  in  Crete. 

*  Thucydides  (vi.  2)  says,  "  After  the  capture  of  Troy,  some  Trojans  who  had 
escaped  from  the  Achaeans  came  in  ships  to  Sicily ;  they  settled  near  the 
Sicanians,  and  both  took  the  name  Elymi.  The  Elymi  had  two  cities,  Eryx  and 
Egesta."  Dionysius  (i.  52)  expands  this  with  a  wonderful  story  of  a  Trojan 
Elymus,  born  in  Sicily  the  child  of  refugees,  who  returned  to  Troy  and,  after  the 
Trojan  war,  co-operated  with  Aeneas  in  Sicily. 

3  Dion.  H.  i.  49-53.  *  Pliny,  N.ff.  iii.  12,  §  82. 

^  Pausanias,  viii.  12.  8. 

'  Pausanias,  iii.  22.  11  ;  viii.  12.  8.     See  Schwegler,  A'o'm.  Gesch.  i.  300  fT. 


96  VIRGIL 

not  now  be  inclined  to  explain  Aeneas'  multitude  of 
tombs  as  his  historian  does.  All  Dionysius'  archaeological 
evidence,  his  very  archaic  wooden  statues  and  his  very 
archaic  inscriptions,  prove  nothing.  The  world  was  full 
of  such  things.  Agamemnon's  staffs  and  the  disc  of 
Lycurgus  ^  were  to  be  seen,  and  even  the  remainder  of 
the  lump  of  clay  out  of  which  Prometheus  made  the  first 
man.^  The  difficulty  of  being  sure  of  St  Edmund's 
bones,  all  of  whose  adventures  fall  within  what  we  may 
call  modern  history,  should  make  us  very  sceptical  of 
Dionysius'  pronouncements  on  relics  from  before  the  day 
of  Homer.  But  we  may  use  the  evidence  he  quotes  to 
establish  a  different  thesis. 

Dr  Farnell,  in  his  interesting  account  of  the  worship 
of  Aphrodite,'*  suggests  that  the  story  of  the  wanderings 
of  Aeneas  is  the  legendary  record  of  the  diffusion  of  a 
cult  of  Aphrodite  over  the  Mediterranean.  Aeneas  in 
Homer  is  unlike  the  other  heroes ;  he  is  a  mysterious 
figure  with  a  future  in  reserve ;  and  this  suggests  that  it 
was  from  the  goddess  that  the  name  Atveiag  passed  directly 
to  a  clan  of  worshippers,^  and  that,  to  explain  their  name 
and  position,  the  sacred  hero  Aeneas  was  imagined,  as 
such  ancestors  often  were.  As  to  the  meaning  of  the  name, 
it  has  been  variously  derived  from  aivt]  or  uluog,  i.e.  "  the 
glorious,"  and  from  aiveo),  i.e.  "  the  consenting  "  ^  ;  and  again 
from  A'lpr],  the  name  of  the  goddess  of  Ecbatana  to  whose 
temple  Polybius  alludes.' 

The  cult  of  Aphrodite  Aeneas  then,  we  should  suppose, 
spread  from  the  Troad  to  the  various  places  which  Dionysius 
and  the  others  mention.  There  were  other  cults  of  Aphrodite 
widely  diffused,  and  with  some  of  these  it  would  blend.     For 

^  Pausanias,  ix.  40.  11.     It  was  honoured  with  daily  sacrifices  at  Chaeronea. 
^  Plutarch,  Lye.  i,  says  it  was  used  as  evidence  by  Aristotle. 
^  Pausanias,  x.  4.  4,  near  .the  Phocian  Panopeis.     The  remnants  consisted  of 
stones  as  large  as  a  wagon-load,  and  smelt  very  like  human  flesh, 

*  Cul/s  of  the  Greek  States,  vol.  ii.  c.  xxi.  pp.  638  ff. 

*  We  have  seen  that  Strabo  calls  them  kings — a  name  which  may  well  imply 
priesthood,  as  at  Athens  and  Rome. 

*  See  Schwegler,  Ho/n.  Gesch.  i.  302,  n.  16. 

'  See  Farnell,  op.  cit.  p.  640 ;  Polybius,  x.  27.     She  is  also  called  Anaitis. 


THE  MYTHS  OF  AENEAS  97 

instance,  Eryx  ^  had  a  Carthaginian  cult,  to  judge  from  its 
similarities  with  that  at  Carthage ;  and  near  Eryx,  our 
authorities  tell  us,  there  were  temples  associated  with  the 
name  Aeneas.  At  Cythera,  too,  was  a  shrine  of  great  age 
and  sanctity.  "  It  was  the  Phoenicians,"  says  Herodotus,^ 
"  who  founded  the  temple  in  Cythera,  coming  from  the  land 
of  Syria."  Aphrodite  is  already  Cythereia  in  Homer,^  while 
Hesiod  *  says  that  it  was  from  Cythera  that  she  passed  to 
Cyprus.  All  or  most  of  the  shrines  of  Aphrodite  are  on  the 
sea-coast,  and  it  is  generally  held  that  they  tell  a  tale  of 
Phoenician  occupation. 

To  explain  the  name  of  the  priestly  tribe  the  eponymous 
hero  Aeneas  was  invented,  and  he  had  the  good  fortune  to 
play  a  considerable  part  in  Homer's  poetry.  Anchises 
answers  closely  to  such  legendary  figures  as  Adonis  and 
Cinyras,  but,  thanks  to  the  author  of  the  Homeric  hymn  to 
Aphrodite,  he  has  a  clearly  marked  and  individual  character 
of  his  own.  His  son,  in  like  manner,  gained  from  the  Iliad 
a  renown  far  beyond  that  of  eponymous  heroes  in  general. 
One  might  say  that  he,  like  Achilles,^  had  gained  everything 
by  the  obscuration  of  his  divinity  in  his  human  nature.  He 
became  a  figure  in  literature.  Thereafter,  when  the  Greeks 
met  the  name  Aeneas,  masculine  or  feminine,  they  thought 
of  Homer  first,  just  as  the  name  Falstaff  to  an  Englishman 
must  invariably  suggest  one  man  of  the  name,  whom  we  have 
learnt  to  know  in  a  particular  author.  But  what  could  be  the 
connexion  between  Aeneas  and  (for  instance)  Leucas  ?  We 
have  seen  how  Dionysius  settles  our  difficulties.  Aeneas 
obviously  visited  all  these  places,  and  when  he  had  come  so 
far,  to  cross  the  Adriatic  was  easy.  Italy  was  near,  it  had  no 
legends  of  its  own,  and  it  had  shrines  of  Aphrodite. 

It  has  been  supposed  that  Stesichorus  first  sent  Aeneas  to 
Italy,  but  this  is  merely  an  inference  from  the  pictures  of 
the    Tabula  Iliaca.     This  monument  represents   in  a  series 

^  See  Farneirs  references  on  p.  742,  n.  83,  and  Boissier,  Country  of  Horace 
and  Virgil,  2.  §4.  The  identification  of  Dido  with  this  goddess  as  worshipped  in 
Carthage  has  been  suggested  as  the  original  explanation  of  Aeneas'  connexion 
with  her. 

2  Herodotus,  i.  105.  '  Odyssey,  18.  193.  *  Hesiod,  Theogony,  191. 

*  Achilles  was  a  sea-god,  lord  of  the  Euxine,  till  he  was  ousted  by  St  Phocas. 


98  VIRGIL 

of  pictures  the  scenes  of  the  Trojan  war,  and  it  indicates  in 
the  spaces  between  them  the  sources  from  which  they  were 
taken, — the  Iliad  (or  instance,  the  Aethiopis  of  Arctinus,  and 
lastly,  the  Iliupersis  of  Stesichorus.  The  last  picture  re- 
presents Aeneas,  holding  the  hand  of  Ascanius,  Anchises 
carrying  the  sacred  things,  and  the  trumpeter  Misenus 
behind  them,  as  they  embark,  and  it  bears  the  inscription 
AtVj/a?  CTvv  Tol<i  iSioig  airaipcav  eU  t?;v  'Ecrxep/ai/.  As  Latin 
sources  are  not  mentioned,  it  has  been  supposed  that  this  last 
picture  must  come  from  Stesichorus — a  Greek  poet  of 
Himera,  in  Sicily,  who  is  supposed  to  belong  to  the  seventh 
century  B.C.  But  the  table  is  Roman  and  is  generally  supposed 
to  date  from  the  early  empire,  so  that  one  feels  a  reasonable- 
ness in  the  view  of  M.  Hild,  that  this  particular  picture  and 
those  near  it  may  have  been  influenced  by  Virgil  as  much  as 
by  Stesichorus.2  Or,  if  Weicker's  view,  cited  by  Schwegler, 
is  right,  and  the  table  dates  from  the  age  of  Julius,  the  tale  of 
Aeneas  coming  to  Italy  could  obviously  not  be  entirely 
ignored  in  a  work  designed  for  educational  use  in  Rome. 

Whatever  we  conclude  about  Stesichorus,  we  have  seen 
that  in  Thucydides'  day  the  Trojan  foundation  of  one  or 
two  Sicilian  towns,  belonging  to  the  "  Elymi,"  was  generally 
allowed.^  This  was  of  course  earlier  than  the  time  when 
the  Greeks  began  to  think  of  finding  a  heroic  origin  for 
Rome.  The  temple  of  Aphrodite  Aineias  at  Elymus  would 
fix  the  Trojan  tradition  and  connect  it  permanently  with  the 
name  of  Aeneas.  When  he  was  once  in  Sicily,  and  had 
founded  one  temple,  it  was  easy  to  let  him  found  another, 
the  more  famous  one  on  Eryx.  Different  opinions  have  been 
hazarded  as  to  the  real  founders  of  this  great  temple.  One 
would  naturally  suppose  it  to  be  Phoenician,  and  even  if  a 
pre-Phoenician  worship  of  a  nature  goddess  on  the  summit 
of  the  mountain  is  to  be  conceded,  still  a  strong  Phoenician 
element  has  to  be  recognized  in  the  cult  as  known  to 
history.     Boissier  quotes  M.  Salinas,  a  distinguished  archaeo- 

^  See  Schwegler,  Rom.  Gesch.  i.  298-9, 

^  Hild,  La  L^gende  d" Eiiie  avant  Virgile,  cited  by  Boissier,  Nouvelles 
Promenades,  p.  134  (tr.  Country  of  Horace  and  Virgil,  p.  126).  Forstemann, 
Aeneasmythus,  p.  9. 

*  Thuc.  vi.  2. 


THE  MYTHS  OF  AENEAS  99 

legist  of  Palermo,  for  the  fact  that  the  great  substructions  of 
the  plateau,  works  so  vast  that  the  ancients  attributed  them 
to  Daedalus,  and  that  in  more  modern  times  they  have  been 
described  by  the  hardly  more  enlightening  term  "  Cyclopean," 
bear  letters  cut  upon  them,  and  that  these  letters  are 
Phoenician.^  Boissier's  statement,  that  the  foundation  of 
the  temple  was  made  by  the  Carthaginians,  seems  a  little 
loose,  for  the  rise  of  Carthage  only  followed  the  decline  of 
Tyre  before  the  Assyrians  in  the  eighth  and  seventh 
centuries  B.C.  Phoenician  influence  was  widespread  in  the 
Mediterranean  long  before  that  period,  though  it  does  not 
necessarily  follow  that  they  were  in  possession  of  Eryx  at  a 
very  early  date,  and  the  view  is  held  that  they  came  to 
Sicily  after  the  Greeks. ^  In  any  case  the  great  name  of 
Venus  Erycina  was  enough  to  bring  Aeneas  to  Eryx,  even  if 
he  had  been  further  away  than  Elymus. 

We  have  now  reached  the  longest  and  most  difficult  step 
which  Aeneas  had  to  take — from  Sicily  to  Latium — even  if 
he  made  two  steps  of  it  by  pausing  at  Cumae.  Mliller 
(cited  by  Schwegler^)  sets  forth  Aeneas'  connexion  with 
Cumae  thus.  The  Aeneadae  of  the  Troad  became  the 
subject  of  the  prophecies  of  the  Sibyl  of  Gergithes,  who 
lost  her  identity  in  the  more  famous  Sibyl  of  Erythrae  ; 
when  the  Italian  Cumae  was  founded,  in  part  by  Aeolians 
from  Cyme,  near  neighbours  of  the  Teucrian  Gergithes, 
Cumae  in  turn  became  the  seat  of  a  Sibyl,  and  the  Sibylline 
oracles  foretelling  the  destiny  of  Aeneas'  house  came  with 
the  Sibyl  to  Italy,  and  with  them  came  Aeneas.  This  is  most 
ingenious,  but  unhappily  the  oracles  of  Sibyls  seem,  as  a 
rule,  when  they  indicate  anything  at  all  definite,  to  have 
been  composed  after  the  event,  and  accordingly  we  may 
rank    the    Sibyl's   contribution    to   our   story,    with   Virgil's 

^  Boissier,  Nmivelles  Promenades,  p.  236 — a  Tery  interesting  section  on  this 
Venus,  her  influence  on  the  maritime  world,  and  her  worship,  and  on  the 
Madonna  di  Trapani,  whose  church  exactly  at  the  foot  of  Eryx  has  inherited  some 
of  the  honours  of  the  pagan  shrine.  Salinas,  Le  unirafenicie  di  Erice,  in  Notizie 
degli  scavi,  April,  1883. 

*  See  Beloch,  Griechische  Gesckichte,  i.  186.  Thucydides  vi,  2,  6,  is  the  great 
authority  for  the  priority  of  the  Phoenicians. 

'  Schwegler,  Kdm.  Gesch.  i.  312-5. 


loo  VIRGIL 

own,   as   a   recognition    of    a   pre-existing    tradition    rather 
than  as  a  source  whence  such  a  tradition  sprang. 

Ill 

Every  city  must  have  some  founder,  and  the  Greeks  who 
first  became  familiar  with  Rome  began,  after  their  habit,  to 
look  for  some  suitable  hero  who  should  have  founded  the 
city.  Aristotle  is  quoted  as  the  authority  for  the  existence 
of  a  story  to  the  effect  that  some  Achaeans,  blown  out  of 
their  course  on  their  voyage  from  Troy,  reached  Latium, 
and,  overtaken  by  winter,  waited  there  for  the  spring, 
but  some  captive  Trojan  women,  less  anxious  than  they  to 
reach  Greece,  burnt  their  ships.^  Another  story,  told  by 
Xenagoras,  was  that  Romus,  a  son  of  Ulysses  and  Circe, 
founded  Rome,  while  his  brothers  Antias  and  Ardeas 
founded  Antium  and  Ardea.^  Cape  Misenum,  it  should 
be  remembered,  took  its  name  from  Misenus,  who  was 
at  first  one  of  Ulysses'  men  and  was  afterwards  turned 
over  to  Aeneas.^  As  to  Rome  and  her  founder,  all  sorts  of 
variants  are  quoted  by  Plutarch,*  and  the  interpolator  of 
Servius,^  Dionysius  cites  Hellanicus  and  the  chronicle 
of  the  Argive  priestesses  (if  this  has  any  value  whatever 
independently  of  Hellanicus)  for  Aeneas'  foundation  of 
Rome,^  But  the  story  only  began  to  have  a  real  significance 
in  the  time  of  Pyrrhus'  war  with  Rome.  It  was  then 
convenient  that  Rome  should  not  have  been  founded  by  a 
Greek,  and  in  Aeneas  the  Romans  could  have  an  ancestor 
traditionally  hostile  to  Pyrrhus'  ancestor  Achilles.'  A 
generation  later,  at  the  end  of  the  first  Punic  war,  the 
Acarnanians  needed  help  against  the  Aetolians,  and  solicited 
the  aid  of  Rome   on   the   ground    that,    alone   among   the 

^  Aristotle,  ap.  Dion.  H.  i.  72.  Plutarch,  J?o//i.  Quaest.  6.  See  Schwegler, 
R.  G.  i.  4. 

2  Dion.  H.  i.  72. 

3  Strabo,  c.  26 ;  Aen.  vi.  162  f.  *  Plutarch,  Romulus,  2. 
s  ad  Aen.  i.  273. 

®  Dion.  H.  i.  72,  in  conjunction  with  Odysseus,  of  all  people. 

'  Pausanias,  i.  12.  I  i>-vr]ix.'r\  rhv  \\.vppov  ttjs  dXciaews  eliXTjXde  ttjs  'IXiov,  Kai  ol 
Kara,  ravra  ijXiri^e  xwpT^o-eiJ'  TroXe/ioOvrf  arpaTevaeiv  ydp  eVt  Tpwujv  dirolKOVS 
'Ax'^^ews  <Ji"'  dTr6yovos. 


<  ' 


THE  MYTHS  OF  AENEAS  ioi 

Greeks,  their  ancestors  had  not  joined  in  the  campaign 
against  Troy,*  It  was  probably  the  first  time  that  a  Greek 
state  had  ever  made  such  a  boast,  and  it  implies  a  belief  at 
least  in  Greece  that  Rome  had  accepted  her  Trojan  origin. 
From  this  date  onwards  the  fact  is  allowed  and  even 
emphasized  by  diplomacy  and  literature. 

It  was  not  perhaps  in  harmony  with  the  old  and  native 
legends  of  Rome's  foundation,  and  by  what  process  it  came 
to  be  accepted  it  is  hard  for  a  modern  to  understand. 
Timaeus  could,  no  doubt,  satisfy  himself  easily  enough  that 
the  Penates  of  Lavinium  were  of  Trojan  clay,  and  the 
heralds'  staffs  of  brass  and  iron  Trojan  too.  Similar  stories 
were  adopted  by  other  towns  in  Latium  and  in  Italy. 
Tusculum  and  Praeneste  were  founded  by  Telegonus  ; 
Lanuvium  by  Diomedes  ;  Ardea  by  a  son  of  Circe  or  of 
Danae  ;  Politorium  by  Priam's  son  Polites^;  the  Salentini 
were  planted  by  Idomeneus ;  Petelia  by  Philoctetes  ^  ; 
Argyripa  by  Diomedes,* 

It  is  useless  to  ask  the  reason  of  such  tales,  though  we 
may  hazard  the  guess  that  they  were  more  familiar  to  the 
readers  of  Greek  books  upon  antiquities  than  to  those  who 
knew  the  legends  of  their  own  countryside  alone.  Where  the 
tales  were  really  taken  in  hand,  they  were  well  managed 
by  the  Greek  scholars  in  Italy.  Variants  were  dropped 
where  they  could  not  be  harmonized,  and  chronology  was 
carefully  adapted  to  fit  both  the  local  and  the  foreign  tales. 
It  was,  for  example,  a  recognized  fact  (no  doubt  owing 
something  to  the  same  school  of  Greek  redactors)  that  Rome 
had  had  seven  kings  only.^     Consequently  Rome  could  not 

^  Justin,  xxviii.  i.  6  ;  2.  2  ;  cf.  Dion.  H.  i.  51. 

*  See  Schwegler,  Rom.  Gesck.  i.  310,  for  all  these  places,  Tusculum,  Propert. 
ii.  32.  4  ;  Dion.  H.  iv.  45,  (S:c.  Praeneste,  Horace,  Odes.  iii.  29.  8 ;  Ovid, 
Fasti,  iii,  92  ;  Virgil  {A.  vii.  678)  and  the  Praenestines,  however,  said  Caeculus, 
and  there  were  also  other  stories.  Lanuvium,  Appian,  B,  C.  ii.  20,  Ardea, 
Dion,  H.  i.  72.  Politorium,  cf.  Servius  on  Aen.  v.  564  noinen  avi  referens 
Priamus,  ttia  cara.  Polite,  \  progenies,  aiictura  Italos.  Sulmo  by  Solymus,  Ovid, 
Fasti,  iv.  70-82. 

3  Virg.  Aen.  iii,  400.  *  Aen.  xi,  243-8. 

'  The  work  of  Ettore  Pais  seems  to  me  to  have  shaken  ,the  orthodox  tradition 
as  to  the  Roman  kings  (especially  Servius  TuUius),  though  this  is  not  to  say  that 
all  his  theories  are  fully  established. 


^o2  VIRGIL 

have  been  founded  more  than  seven  generations  before  the 
year  at  which  the  lists  of  consuls  began.  By  a  happy 
coincidence  with  Athenian  history  this  year  was  510  or 
511,  and  reckoning  roughly  the  usual  three  generations  to 
a  century  (some  authorities,  however,  preferring  forty  years 
to  a  generation),  the  historiographer  reached  the  date  753  or 
754.  But  Troy  fell,  by  current  reckoning,  based  e.g.  on  the 
date  of  Lycurgus  {yjG)  and  his  distance  from  his  ancestor 
Herakles,  some  three  hundred  years  earlier,  and  thus 
Aeneas  could  leave  plenty  of  room  for  Romulus.  Hence 
Aeneas  did  not  found  Rome,  but  Lavinium,i  which  may 
or  may  not  have  been  (as  some  critics  suppose)  a  kind  of 
federal  foundation  in  Latium,  and  therefore  without  a  local 
legend  of  a  founder.  This  explanation  does  not  seem  to 
account  for  Praeneste,  Ardea,  and  the  other  places,  though 
Schwegler  and  Boissier  accept  it.^ 

It  now  only  remained  for  some  ingenious  person  to  collect 
and  harmonize  the  tales  of  Aeneas'  wanderings,  and  this 
was  gradually  done.  Fabius  Pictor  adopted  the  story. 
Naevius,  who  served  in  the  first  Punic  war,  and  wrote 
its  history  in  Saturnian  verse,  was  the  first  poet  to  touch 
the  tale.  He  is  supposed  to  have  traced  the  feud  of  Rome 
and  Carthage  back  to  Aeneas  and  Dido,^  telling  of  Troy's 
burning,  of  the  escape  of  Aeneas  and  Anchises,  the  voyage, 
and  the  visit  to  Dido.*  Ennius  in  his  turn  touched  the 
tale,  and  made  Ilia  the  daughter  of  Aeneas,  and  Romulus 
his  grandson,  a  proceeding  which,  as  we  have  seen, 
needed  correction. ^  By  this  time  the  fiction  was  common 
property,  Philip  V  of  Macedon  had  to  recognize  in  a 
treaty  with  Ilium  the  town's  hereditary  connexion  with 
Rome.^  Flamininus,  the  great  phil-Hellen,  described  his 
countrymen  as  Aeneadae.'^  Later  on  the  fashion  set  in  at 
Rome  of  finding  ancestors  among  the  Trojans.    Julius  Caesar, 

^  The  Lavinium  story  was  helped  by  the  coincidence  that  a  neighbouring 
spot  bore  the  name  Troia — proof  positive. 

^  Schwegler,  Rom.  Gesch.  i.  316  f.  ;  Boissier,  Nouv.  prom.  p.  145. 

'  Timaeus,  cited  by  Dion.  H.  i.  74,  said  Carthage  and  Rome  were  founded 
contemporaneously. 

^  Schwegler,  Rom.  Gesch.  i.  85.  °  Preller,  Rom.  Mythologie,  ii.  311,  n.  I. 

Livy,  xxix.  12.  ''  Plutarch,  Flamininus^  12. 


THE  MYTHS  OF  AENEAS  103 

in  his  famous  speech  at  the  funeral  of  his  aunt,  the  widow  of 
Marius,  laid  claim  to  descent  from  lulus,  the  son  of  Aeneas.^ 
This  of  course  settled  the  question  of  Aeneas'  son,  for  so  far, 
as  we  have  seen,  it  had  been  uncertain  whether  Ascanius 
came  to  Italy  or  not.  And  indeed  an  Italian  son  of  Aeneas 
by  Lavinia  is  a  competitor  for  the  honour  of  being  the 
Emperor's  ancestor.^  But  many  Romans  beside  Caesar 
claimed  Trojan  blood,  and  to  some  of  these  famihes  Virgil 
gave  credentials,  while  Varro  (rather  earlier)  wrote  a  book 
on  the  whole  subject — de  fainiliis  Troianis.^ 

Among  Virgil'scontemporaries  several,  whoseworkssurvive, 
touched  the  story  of  Aeneas.  Livy,  for  instance,  begins  his 
history  with  it,  and  even  he  leaves  it  shadowy  and  unsub- 
stantial.^ Tibullus  has  left  us  a  long  address  supposed  to  be 
delivered  by  a  Sibyl  to  Aeneas,  in  which  his  future  wanderings 
and  arrival  are  told,  but  if  Tibullus  had  never  written  in 
another  vein  this  poem  would  never  have  made  his  name 
immortal.^  Horace  and  Propertius  were  both  faintly  in- 
terested in  the  ancient  history  of  Rome,  but  Propertius  never 
found  very  much  inspiration  in  any  theme  but  Cynthia,  and 
Horace  was  no  more  an  archaeologist  than  Omar  Khayyam. 

They  say  the  Lion  and  the  Lizard  keep 

The  Courts  where  Jamsh)M  gloried  and  drank  deep  : 

And  Bahram  that  great  Hunter — the  Wild  Ass 
Stamps  o'er  his  Head,  but  cannot  break  his  Sleep. 

What  is  this  but  a  more  poetical  variant  of 

Ire  tamen  restat  Numa  quo  devenit  et  Ancus? 
Thus,  when  Virgil  took  the  theme  in  hand,  he  found  it  a 
fairly  complete  and  coherent  tradition,  but  still,  in  spite  of 
his  predecessors,  imbued   with    the    prosaic    flavour   of  the 

^  Suetonius, /«/»/5,  6.  Norden  \^Neu€  Jahrbiicher  fur  kl.  Altertum,  1901,  p. 
258)  cites  Babelon  (Alonnaies  de  la  AV/.  Rom.  ii.  p.  9  ff.)  for  the  fact  that  the 
head  of  Venus  appears  on  coins  of  the  JuHi  about  the  period  154-134  B.C. 

*  See  Norden  {Neue  Jahrbiicher  fiir  kl.  AUerhim,  1901,  pp.  276-9)  for  a  dis- 
cussion of  the  whole  matter. 

'  Servius,  ad  Aen.  v.  704.  Atticus  did  the  same  sort  of  genealogical  work, 
Nepos,  18.  2. 

*  Livy,  i.  1-2.  6  Tibullus,  ii.  5.  19-65. 


104  VIRGIL 

Greek  chronographers ;  and  how  prosaic  and  tiresome  a  Greek 
writer  could  be,  no  one  knows  who  has  not  made  excursions 
into  Greek  chronologies.  The  treatment  of  Naevius  and 
Ennius  was  not  that  which  Virgil  would  care  to  give  to  his 
story.  No  great  poet  would  wish,  in  his  happier  moments, 
to  be  an  annalist.  If  Virgil  then  was  to  make  anything  of 
the  story  of  Aeneas,  he  must  redeem  it  for  himself  Homer, 
no  doubt,  might  help  him  in  battle  pieces,  but  he  had  no 
Homer  to  give  him  his  Italians.  Evander,  Remulus,  Turnus 
are  his  own  creations,  even  if  legend  had  known  them  of  old. 
The  voyage  of  Aeneas  might  be  made  easier  by  reminiscences 
of  the  Odyssey,  and  the  episode  of  Dido  by  the  Hippolyttis 
and  the  Argonautica. 

But  the  substantial  originality  of  Virgil  is  not  diminished, 
even  if  we  concede  that  he  borrowed  as  much  as  the  most 
hostile  critic  would  wish  to  assert.  No  great  poem  was  ever 
made  entirely  of  borrowed  material,  and  that  the  Aeneid  is 
a  great  poem  is  beyond  dispute.  Its  subject  had  so  far 
inspired  no  great  poetry  whatever,  and  it  is  only  under  the 
touch  of  Virgil  that  we  realize  that  it  had  any  poetic 
possibilities  in  it.  He  found  it  a  Greek  antiquary's  tale — 
to  call  it  a  fancy  might  imply  too  much  imagination — he 
wrought  it  into  life,  and  he  left  it  a  nation's  epic,  filled 
through  and  through  with  the  national  Roman  spirit,  and 
so  instinct  with  human  feeling  that  for  generations  men,  to 
whom  Rome  was  not  what  she  was  to  Virgil,  found  in  the 
Aeneid  the  word  for  every  experience  of  human  life.  Con- 
versely, the  poverty  and  the  dryness  of  the  story  before 
Virgil,  when  we  compare  it  with  the  wonderful  epic,  bring 
home  to  us  in  a  new  way  the  genius  of  the  Roman  poet. 


CHAPTER  V 
THE  LAND  AND  THE  NATION— 1.  ITALY 

Open  my  heart  and  you  will  see 

Graved  inside  of  it,  "  Italy," 

Such  lovers  old  are  I  and  she  : 

So  it  always  was,  so  shall  ever  be. — Browning. 

AMONG  the  most  original  and  significant  features  of 
the  poetry  of  Virgil  is  its  conscious  appeal  to  a  nation, 
as  we  understand  the  word  "nation"  to-day,  to  a 
people  of  one  blood  living  within  well-defined  but  broad 
limits,  a  people  with  various  traditions  all  fusing  in  one 
common  tradition.  It  is  the  poetry  of  a  nation  and  a  country, 
for  the  poet  will  not  think  of  them  apart;  and  it  is  not  the 
least  of  his  greatness  that  he  has  linked  them  thus  closely, 
and  made  people  and  land  as  a  unity  so  distinct  from  the 
rest  of  the  world. 

It  was  a  new  thing  in  literature.  The  Homeric  poems  are 
Df  course  addressed  to  all  the  Greeks,  and  all  Greeks  saw 
in  them  a  common  inheritance,  but  the  underlying  idea  is 
:iuite  other  than  that  of  Virgil's  Italy.  Greeks  lived  here 
and  there  in  Europe,  Asia,  and  Africa,  under  every  form  of 
government,  divided  into  many  independent  and  often 
antagonistic  communities,  conscious  indeed  of  their  being  of 
Dne  blood,  but  resolved  never  to  submit,  if  possible,  to  being 
under  one  government.  Greek  sold  Greek  to  the  barbarian 
as  uniformly  then  as  in  a  later  age  one  Christian  people  in 
Eastern  Europe  has  betrayed  another  Christian  people  to 
:he  Moslem.  The  conception  of  one  Greece  and  a  common 
:itizenship  of  all  Greeks  was  as  impossible  from  Greek  ways 
Df  thinking,  even  in  the  days  of  Aristotle,  as  it  was  geo- 
graphically incapable  of  being  realized.  If  one  may  use  an 
llustration  from  Aristophanes  with  a  slight  extension  of  its 
suggestion,   the   anxiety    felt    by    Strepsiades,    on    his   first 

105 


io6  VIRGIL 

inspection  of  a  map,  to  have  Sparta  removed  as  far  as 
possible  from  Athens,  would  seem  to  have  been  shared  by 
almost  every  Greek  state  with  reference  to  its  neighbours, 
unless  there  were  some  strong  probability  of  those  neighbours 
being  subdued  and  annexed. 

oj?  eyyi;?  ijixoov'  touto  iravv  (ppovTi^eTe, 

TavTrjv  acf)   rj/j-wv  airayayeiv  Troppw  Travv^  (^Clouds  215)- 

"  How  near  to  us ! "  Such  an  exclamation  never  led  to 
national  unity. 

Later  Greek  literature  offers  us  no  such  ideal. ^  The  plays 
of  the  great  Athenian  dramatists  were  primarily  for  Athens, 
and  though  they  might  be  read  and  were  read  abroad,^  they 
would  waken  little  more  consciousness  of  common  nationality 
than  the  best  American  literature  may  in  England.  The 
literature  of  Alexandria  was  still  less  national,  produced  as 
it  was  under  a  dynasty  which  steadily  became  less  and  less 
Greek,  and  by  scholars  who  grew  more  and  more  unconscious 
of  the  possibility  of  an  appeal  to  any  audience  not  as  learned 
or  as  city-less  as  themselves.  That  Greek  literature  was 
throughout  so  independent  of  national  or  political  inte- 
rests, few  will  count  to  be  an  unmixed  loss  to  mankind.  For 
the  moment,  however,  this  aspect  of  it  may  be  emphasized 
to  raise  into  greater  prominence  the  novelty  of  Virgil's 
conception. 

Virgil,  then,  gave  for  the  first  time  its  literary  expression 
to  the  triumph  of  a  nation,  politically,  racially,  and  geo- 
graphically one,  over  the  clan  and  over  the  city-state.  Like 
all  great  conceptions,  this  was  the  fruit  of  long  years,  of 
centuries  of  maturing.  It  was,  we  might  say,  foreshadowed 
by  the  blind  Appius  Claudius,  when  he  counselled  the  Senate 
to  make  no  peace  with  Pyrrhus  so  long  as  he  was  on  Italian 
soil.  The  old  man  must  not  be  supposed  to  have  divined 
the  far  distant  union  of  all   Italians  in  a  common  citizen- 

^  "  How  parlous  close  it  is  !  Let  this  be  your  sole  study — to  shift  it  leagues 
away  from  us  "  (Starkie). 

^  Isocrates  may  be  cited,  but  his  views  of  national  unity  are  hardly  Virgil's. 

^  Cf.  Plutarch,  Nicias  29,  the  popularity  of  Euripides  in  Sicily,  attested  by  the 
famous  story  of  the  Athenian  captives  in  413  B.C. 


ITALY  107 

ship,  yet  from  this  assertion  by  Appius  Claudius  of  the 
jnity  of  Italy  Virgil's  conception  is  lineally  descended, 
[t  was  some  feeling  of  this  kind  that  kept  so  much  of 
Italy  loyal  to  Rome  throughout  the  Hannibalic  war.^ 
fhe  expansion  of  Rome  over  the  Mediterranean  served  to 
leighten  this  sense  of  Rome  and  Italy  being  one.  Roman 
ind  Italian  served  together  in  the  same  army,  and  the 
Roman  merchant  and  the  Italian  did  business  together 
in  a  hundred  cities  of  the  East  under  the  common  security 
3f  the  Roman  name.  Just  as  to-day  the  signficance  of 
the  British  flag  is  best  learned  abroad,  we  may  believe  that 
the  opening  of  the  old  world  of  the  East  and  the  new  world 
of  Spain  and  Gaul  to  Italian  commerce  helped  forward  the 
detrition  of  old  clan  distinctions  and  made  Marsian  and 
Apulian  conscious  that  they  were  both  Italian  in  blood 
and  Roman  in  fact,  if  not  yet  in  the  letter  of  the  law.  The 
Social  War  was  essentially,  like  the  American  Civil  War, 
a  war  for  unity.  The  day  of  tribal  independence  was  gone, 
and  the  Italian  fought  for  Italy,  and  for  a  united  Italy, 
against  the  Roman,  who  fought  for  a  divided  Italy.  The 
significant  new  name  given  to  Corfinium,  the  federal  capital, 
is  evidence  enough,  Italica  was  to  be  the  capital  of  Italy, 
and  we  may  say  that  the  conception  embodied  in  this 
renaming  of  Corfinium  carried  the  day.  Corfinium  was 
a  failure,  but  Italica  was  triumphant.  After  one  year  of 
war  the  Romans  accepted  Italica — not  Corfinium — and  peace 
came  as  soon  as  Rome  became  the  new  Italica.  The  name 
was  dropped  and  forgotten,  but  the  great  idea  lived,  and 
when  Caesar  in  49  extended  the  Roman  citizenship  to 
Transpadane  Gaul,  he  gave  to  it  its  full  and  complete 
realization.  Though  the  incorporation  of  Cisalpine  Gaul 
was  not  actually  achieved  for  some  years,  still  Italy  was  at 
last  admittedly  one  in  idea,  one  people,  and  one  country 
from  the  Alps  to  the  straits  of  Messina  ;  and  with  her  unity 
came  her  poet.  This  great  achievement  of  Caesar's  was  one 
of  the  links  that  bound  the  poet  to  his  house.  There  is  thus 
a  significance  in  the  poet's  language  when  he  describes  the 
battle  of  Actium.     It  is  not  the  victory  of  Rome  so  much  as 

'  Cf.  Horace,  OdeSy  iii.  6.  33-44. 


io8  VIRGIL 

of  Italy.  Italy  has  her  place  in  senate  and  people ;  they  are 
Italian  gods  who  bless  Caesar's  cause,  and  the  troops  he 
leads  are  Italians — 

Hinc  Augustus  agens  Italos  in  proelia  Caesar 
cum  patribus  populoque  penatibus  et  magnis  dis 

(viii.  678).! 

For  the  sake  of  clearness  we  may  group  what  Virgil 
has  to  say  of  Italy  under  the  headings  of  the  country,  the 
inhabitants,  and  the  Trojan  invasion. 


I 

Virgil  did  for  Italy  in  some  degree  what  Scott  did  for 
Scotland.  He  called  the  attention  of  his  people  for  all 
future  time  to  the  beauty  of  the  land,  and  linked  the 
scenery  with  its  history  in  language  that  could  not  be 
forgotten,  while  in  emphasizing  the  unity  of  the  Italian 
people  he  did  a  great  deal  more  than  Scott  did  or  needed 
to  do. 

This  interest  in  scenery  and  in  nature  was  a  compara- 
tively new  thing  in  the  world,  and  we  may  say  that  it  was 
one  of  the  fruits  of  literature.  An  unlettered  people  is 
seldom  much  affected  by  scenery  ;  to  feel  the  charm  and  the 
sublimity  of  a  natural  scene  implies  more  reflection  than 
they  can  readily  achieve.  And  again,  a  people  keenly 
absorbed  in  political  or  commercial  life  is  apt  to  be  in- 
terested in  man  to  the  exclusion  of  nature.  This  explains 
the  inattention  of  Homer  to  landscape,  as  compared  with 
later  Greek  writers  and  with  Virgil.^ 

^  "  On  this  side  is  Augustus  Caesar  leading  the  Italians  to  conflict,  with  the 
senate  and  the  people  and  the  home-gods  and  their  mighty  brethren  "  (Conington). 
We  may  compare  Horace,  Odes,  iii.  5.  9-12,  where  the  combination  of  Roman 
and  Italian  names  is  highly  significant.  He  is  speaking  of  the  soldiers  who 
surrendered  after  Crassus'  defeat  at  Carrhae,  53  B.C. — 

Sub  rege  Medo  Marsu»  et  Apulus, 
anciliorum  et  noiiiinist  et  togae 
oblilus  aeternaeque  Vestae, 
incoluiiii  love  et  urhe  Roma. 

^  One  might  almost  say  that   Homer  is  more  interested   in  sea  than  land — 


ITALY  109 

At  a  later  day  than  Homer's  we  find  Socrates  startled  and 
arprised  by  the  aspect  of  a  country  spot,  a  mile  or  two 
om  Athens,  and  when  Phaedrus,  who  has  brought  him 
lere,  exclaims  that  he  talks  as  if  he  were  a  complete 
tranger  to  the  region,  he  admits  it.  He  is,  he  says,  fond  of 
istruction,  and  "country  places  and  trees  will  not  teach 
im  anything."  ^ 

But  a  change  was  coming  over  the  world,  for  we  find 
iristotle  writing  on  natural  history  (Trepl  ^wwu)  and  his 
upil  Theophrastus  on  botany.  Socrates  had  been  amazed 
t  the  grass,  as  if  he  had  seen  it  for  the  first  time.  Aristotle, 
n  the  other  hand,  was  an  acute  and  careful  student  of 
ature,  and  his  powers  of  observation,  according  to  Huxley, 
^ere,  if  not  of  the  highest  class,  at  least  very  good.^ 

With  the  decay  of  political  life,  as  we  have  seen,  men 
Lirned  their  minds  to  matters  which  they  had  ignored  in 
he  days  of  the  city  state,  and  they  found  ever  increasing 
Tterest  where  of  old  they  had  suspected  none.  And  Nature, 
hey  found,  repaid  their  study,  and  the  poets,  while  still 
hinking  first  of  man,  began  to  look  at  her.  To  go  no 
jrther,  we  find  abundant  evidence  of  a  certain  interest  in 
er  in  the  poetry  of  Theocritus  and  Meleager.  The  fashion 
/as  set,  and  everybody  began  to  draw  flowers  and  trees  and 
o  forth — not  necessarily  from  nature,  but  from  Theocritus 
terhaps — and  from  the  Greeks  the  mode  passed  to  Rome, 
low  popular  it  was,  may  be  seen  in  Horace's  lofty  contempt 
or  these  second-hand  artists.  It  was  for  their  groves  and 
treams  that  he  coined  one  of  his  most  famous  phrases — the 

thoroughly  Greek  habit  of  mind  ;  while  Virgil,  an  Italian,  is  of  the  opinion 
xpressed  by  Lucretius — 

Stiave  mari  magna  turbantibus  aequora  ventis 
e  terra  .   .   .  spectare  {\\.  i). 

Jut  he  gives  a  memorable  line  to  the  fisherman  on  the  sea  (6'.  i.  142). 

*  Phaedrus,  230  C,  D.  The  sentiment  has  been  surprisingly  echoed  in  our 
iwn  day.  "When  Wordsworth  tells  us,"  writes  Viscount  Morley,  in  the 
ntroduction  to  his  edition  of  Wordsworth,  "that  'one  impulse  from  a  vernal 
vood  ma)'  teach  you  more  of  man,  of  moral  evil  and  of  good,  than  all  the  sages 
an,'  such  a  proposition  cannot  seriously  be  taken  as  more  than  a  half- playful 
ally  for  the  benefit  of  some  too  bookish  friend.  No  impulse  from  a  vernal  wood 
an  teach  us  anything  at  all  of  moral  evil  and  of  good." 

*  Huxley,  Sciciue  and  Culture,  Lect.  viii. 


no  VIRGIL 

"purple  patch." ^  Horace  himself  does  not  altogether 
disregard  Nature — 

domus  Albuneae  resonantis 
et  praeceps  Anio  ac  Tiburni  lucus  et  uda 
mobilibus  pomaria  rivis  ^  {C.  i.  7.  11) — 

but  he  cannot  be  accused  of  wasting  time  upon  her.  He 
was  a  friend,  but  a  lukewarm  friend,^  of  the  country  in  spite 
of  O  rus  divimim.  The  country,  in  fact,  was  a  refuge  from 
tiresome  people  who  worried  him  in  Rome. 

But  to  turn  from  Nature  to  scenery,  we  find,  until  the 
invasion  of  Rome  by  Greek  literature,  little  trace  of  interest 
in  history  or  travel. 

Vixere  fortes  ante  Agamemnona,  * 

but  the  very  names  of  their  battlefields  perished  with  their 
own,  unsung.  It  was  Greek  literature  that  first  quickened 
Rome ;  and  when  the  Roman  waked  to  the  charm  and 
interest  of  legend  and  history,  it  was  to  the  stories  of  the 
great  Greek  past  that  he  turned  ;  and  they,  with  the  art  and 
architecture  of  Greece,  wooed  him  abroad.  Italy  was  a  land 
of  prose,  but  Greece  of  poetry,  of  heroism,  and  romance. 
The  great  towns  and  scenes  of  Greece  drew  pilgrims  in 
increasing  numbers,  and  some  of  them  went  home  with 
deepened  experience  and  larger  sympathies.  When  Tullia 
died,  Servius  Sulpicius  wrote  to  Cicero  reflections  which  had 
been  called  forth  within  him  by  the  ruins  of  Megara.^ 

1  Horace,  A.  P.  \^ purpiiretis,  late  qui splendeat,  unus  et  alter  \  adsuitur paiinus, 
cum  Incus  et  ara  Dianae  \  et  properantis  aquae  per  anioenos  ambitus  agros,  \  aut 
fluiiien  Rhenum  aut  pluvius  describitur  arcus. 

2  "  Bright  Albunea  echoing  from  her  cell. 
O  headlong  Anio  !  O  Tiburnian  groves, 

And  orchards  saturate  with  shifting  streams."     (Conington). 
'  Boissier,  Nouvelles  Promenades  Arch^ologiques,  i.  §  2  "  Horace  fut  longtemps 
un  ami  assez  tiede  de  la  campagne." 
*  Horace,  Odes  iv.  9,  25  : 

"  Before  Atrides  men  were  brave  : 
But  ah  !  oblivion,  dark  and  long, 
Has  lock'd  them  in  a  tearless  grave, 

For  lack  of  consecrating  song"  (Conington). 
^  Cicero,  Fam.  iv.  5. 


ITALY  1 1 1 

In  the  last  years  of  the  Republic  and  the  early  years  of 
the  Empire  there  was  a  great  deal  of  foreign  travel  for 
pleasure.  If  Catullus  went  on  business  to  the  province  that 
repaid  him  so  ill,  he  chose  his  homeward  route  to  please 
himself  Horace  talks  of  men  who  travelled  to  sunny 
Rhodes,  to  Corinth  on  its  isthmus,  Delphi  and  Tempe,  but, 
like  a  good  Epicurean,  he  wonders  why  they  should  go 
so  far. 

Caelum  non  animum  mutant  qui  trans  mare  currunt 

is  his  conclusion  to  a  letter  to  a  friend  who  travelled  in  Asia 
Minor.i  What  they  seek  may  be  found  nearer  home — 
the  quiet  scene,  comfort  and  content.  But  not  everybody 
would  accept  such  a  doctrine,  denying  as  it  virtually  did  any 
real  value  to  experience.  Something  was  to  be  gained  by 
seeing  the  islands  "where  burning  Sappho  loved  and  sung." 
Horace  was  wrong. 

It  is  here  that  Virgil  comes  into  our  story.  He  would 
agree  with  the  traveller.  It  is  something  to  stand  on  the 
site  of  Troy  as  Caesar  did  after  Pharsalia,  to  wander  along 
the  Simois  and  think  of  Homer  and  of  Hector  and 
Achilles.2  But  there  is  another  land  beside  Greece  full  of 
charm,  romance,  and  poetry.  Why  look  for  such  things 
only  in  the  mythical,  the  distant,  the  unknown  ?  Are  there 
no  stories  of  great  deeds  and  great  inspirations  but  in 
Colchis,  no  rivers  of  charm  and  suggestion  but  Hermus  and 
Ganges,  mythical  and  half-unknown,  no  beauty  in  earth's 
gifts  unless  they  come  from  Arabia  and  the  fabulous 
Panchaia?  Or  is  it  not  truer  that  Italy  herself  is  no  land  of 
prose,  but  is  full  of  every  charm,  every  appeal  to  imagina- 
tion and  sympathy,  which  Greece  can  boast?  Look,  he 
cries  in  the  second  Georgic,  look  at  our  own  land,  consider 
her  fields  and  crops  and  herds,  think  of  her  streams  and 
of  her  lakes — are  these  lacking  in  poetry,  in  beauty,  in 
appeal .''     Think  of  her  people  and  their  inglorious  heroism — 

1  Epp.  i.  II. 

"  We  come  to  this ;  when  o'er  the  world  we  range, 
'Tis  but  our  climate,  not  our  mind  we  change"  (Conington.) 
*  Lucan,  Pharsalia,  ix.  961. 


112  VIRGIL 

the  hardy  race,  schooled  to  bear  evil,  the  patient  builders  of 
the  little  towns  on  the  hill-tops — look  at  what  they  have 
done,  look  at  their  conquest  of  Nature,  look  at  the  fights 
they  have  fought  for  home  and  country,  look  at  their  victory 
over  themselves — 

Salve  magna  parens  frugum,  Saturnia  tellus, 
magna  virum  !  {G.  ii.  173).-^ 

What  Virgil  did  once  in  the  Georgics  he  does  again  in 
the  Aeneid.  The  scene  is  still  Italy,  but  by  the  time  the 
poet  lays  down  his  pen  it  is  a  new  Italy,  full  of  poetic 
associations,  every  region  rich  with  heroic  legend  told  in 
great  language,  itself  moving  and  stimulating. 

^  "  Hail  to  thee,  land  of  Saturn,  mighty  mother  of  noble  fruits  and  noble 
men "  (Conington).  I  have  resisted,  but  succumb  to,  the  temptation  of  quoting 
here  Ausonius'  greatest  poem,  the  Mosella.  With  much  inferior  matter  inter- 
mingled, he  really  does  represent  the  spirit  of  Virgil  again  after  four  centuries  of 
external  imitation.  He  studies  a  river  of  his  native  land  (I  use  the  term  broadly), 
and  finds  it  as  full  of  inspiration  and  suggestion  as  Virgil  found  Italian  waters. 
He  goes  indeed  beyond  Virgil  in  his  study  of  Nature,  e.g.  his  picture  of  the  river- 
bottom — 

Sic  dettiersa  procul  durante  per  intima  visu 

cerninius,  arcanique  patet  penetrale  profundi, 

cum  vada  lene  meant  liquidarum  et  lapsus  aquarum 

prodit  caerulea  dispersas  hue  Jiguras : 

quod  sulcata  levi  crispatur  aretia  meatu, 

inclinata  tremunt  viridi  quod gramina  f undo  ; 

tisque  sub  ingenuis  agiiatae  fontibus  herbae 

vibrantes  patiuntiir  aquas,  lucetque  latetque 

calculus,  et  viridem  distinguit  glarea  museum  .  .  . 

intentos  tamen  usque  oculos  errore  fatigant 

interhidentes,  examina  lubrica,  pisces  {Mosella,  59  ff.). 

Does  he  need  to  tell  us  ast  ego  .  .  .  Naturae  mirabor  opus  (1.  51)  ?  Later  on  he 
quotes  our  passage  of  the  Georgics  for  his  own  land — 

Salve  magne  parens  frugumque  virumque  Mosella  ! 

te  clari  proceres,  te  beilo  exercita  pubes, 

aemula  te  Latiae  decorat  facundia  linguae. 

Quin  etiam  mores  et  laetum  fronte  serena 

ingenium  Natura  tuis  concessit  alumnis. 

Nee  sola  antiquos  ostentat  Roma  Catones, 

aut  unus  tatitum  iusti  spectator  et  aequi 

pallet  Aristides  veteresque  illustrat  Athenas  (Ibid.  381). 

That  the  form  of  this  is  Virgilian  is  clear,  but  the  spirit  also  is  the  same, 
and  the  inspiration  comes  from  the  same  source — vincit  amor  patriae. 


ITALY  1 1 3 

Even  before  Aeneas  reaches  Italy  we  have  evidence  ot 
the  new  interest  in  scenery — 

iam  medio  apparet  fluctu  nemorosa  Zacynthos^  (iii.  270). 

This  is  no  mere  imitation  of  Homer's  vX^ecrcra  ZdKuv6o<; 
{Od.  9.  24).  It  is  the  imagined  sight  of  the  island  rising 
from  the  sea  and  slowly  showing  more  and  more  of  its 
forests  as  the  ships  come  nearer.  But  we  are  told  that  Virgil 
made  slips  in  his  pictures  of  the  islands  and  other  places 
on  the  voyage.  Myconos  is  not  lofty,  though  Aeneas  tells 
Dido  that  it  is  (iii.  y6).  Mr  W.  G.  Clark  doubts  whether 
Virgil  knew  at  first  hand  any  of  the  scenery  through 
which  Aeneas  sailed  till  he  reached  Italy,  and  there  seem 
to  be  difficulties  not  only  in  the  Aegaean  but  on  the  west 
coast  of  Greece."  Still,  the  interest  in  scenery  is  clear 
enough,  if  some  of  the  scenes  are  confused ;  and,  after  all, 
these  places  are  only  passed  on  the  way  to  the  promised 
land.  At  last  it  is  sighted,  and  here  at  least,  one  feels, 
Virgil  was  recalling  a  homeward  voyage  of  his  own  and 
his  first  home-thoughts  from  abroad.  He  had  himself  seen 
at  daybreak  the  dim  line  of  land  along  the  horizon.  At  all 
events  he  draws  the  low-lying  shore  of  the  Brindisi  coast 
exactly  as  it  looks  from  the  sea. 

lamque  rubescebat  stellis  Aurora  fugatis, 
cum  procul  obscuros  coUis  humilemque  videmus 
Italiam,  Italiam  primus  conclamat  Achates, 
Italiam  laeto  socii  clamore  salutant^  (iii.  521). 

But  now,  save  for  the  storm  that  drove  the  fleet  to 
Carthage  and  the  lamentable  delay  there,  Virgil  is  done  with 
foreign  seas,  and  Aeneas  coasts  up  the  western  shore  of  Italy, 
and    point   by    point   the   headlands    rise,    and    receive   the 

^  "  Now  from  mid  sea  rises  Zacynthos  with  its  woods." 

*  W.  G.  Clark,  Pe/oJ>onnesus,  pp.  20,  21,  cited  by  Conington  on  Aen.  iii.  76. 
Compare  the  question  of  the  temple,  Aen.  iii.  275-80,  where  Actium  and  Leucas 
are  in  some  confusion. 

^  "  And'now  the  stars  were  fled  away  and  Dawn  was  reddening,  when  afar  we  see 
the  dim  hills  and  low  line  of  Italy  ; — '  Italy  ! '  Achates  was  the  first  to  cry  ; 
'  Italy  ! '  my  comrades  salute  her  with  a  glad  shout." 


114  VIRGIL 

names  they  bear  in  history,  Palinurus,  Caieta,  Misenum.^ 
Virgil  could  do  little  for  Corcyra  ;  it  had  its  legend  and  he 
could  only  recall  it ;  but,  while  he  found  the  tale  of  Palinurus, 
for  example,  ready  to  his  hand,  a  mere  archaeological  fancy, 
based  on  a  sailor's  story,  he  made  the  legend  for  all  time. 
The  cape  Palinurus  would  always  thereafter  recall  the 
story  of  the  lost  pilot  and  his  chief's  lament,  lines  among 
the  most  unforgettable  ever  written  by  Virgil  for  their 
simplicity  and  pathos — 

O  nimium  caelo  et  pelago  confise  sereno 

nudus  in  ignota  Palinure  iacebis  arena  ^  (v.  S70). 

The  meeting  of  Aeneas  and  his  pilot  in  Hades  no  doubt 
was  suggested  by  the  similar  meeting  of  Odysseus  and 
Elpenor  in  the  Odyssey^  but  in  its  development  we  can  see 
the  method  of  Virgil.  Elpenor  has  no  abiding  name  or 
home  in  the  Greek  world  ^  ;  Palinurus  wakes  memories  of 
Italy,  and  makes  a  new  and  splendid  tradition — 

aeternumque  locus  Palinuri  nomen  habebit*  (vi.  381). 

The  story  is  localized,  it  becomes  Italian,  and  Italy  is 
enriched  by  one  more  poetic  association. 

Similarly  Virgil  takes  a  pleasure  in  gathering  up  the  old 
legends  of  Italy.  The  modern  expert  in  folklore  would  find 
fault  with  him  for  his  occasional  addition  of  a  slight  Greek 
colouring  to  them.  On  the  other  hand,  the  great  editor 
Heyne  (Carlyle's  Heyne)  found  an  element  of  "  the  rough  and 
rustic  "  in  them,  which  survived  even  the  "  elegance  of  Virgil." 
Such  stories  as  those  of  Camilla,  the  little  girl  sent  flying 

1  For  Palinurus  and  Misenus  see  Dion.  H.  Ant  Rom.  i.  83.  Preller,  Rom. 
Myih.^  ii.  316,  "A  mariner's  tale,  such  as  were  common  in  the  Mediterranean, 
a  personification  of  the  favourable  wind,  vaXiv  odpos,  which  is  turned  into 
a  steersman."  Capes  of  the  name  are  found  near  Cyrene  and  near  Ephesus. 
(See  chapter  iv.) 

"  "Ah,  too  trustful  in  calm  skies  and  seas,  thou  shalt  lie,  O  Palinurus,  naked 
on  an  alien  sand  "  (Mackail). 

3  For  the  real  value  of  the  episode  of  Elpenor  the  reader  should  consult  Miss 
Stawell's  chapter  on  "  The  House  of  Death  "  in  her  brilliant  book,  Homer  and  the 
Iliad. 

*  "  For  evermore  shall  the  place  keep  Palinurus'  name  "  (Mackail). 


ITALY  1 1 5 

across  the  swoln  stream  lashed  to  her  father's  spcar,^  of 
Caeculus,  the  child  of  a  spark  of  fire,^  of  Cacus  breathing 
flame,^  of  the  famous  white  sow  with  thirty  porkers,^  and  of 
the  twins  nursed  by  the  wolf,  were  told  in  Italy  long  before 
Virgil's  day,  the  genuine  heritage  of  the  countryside.  Simple 
old  tales  they  were,  loved  by  the  people ;  and  the  poet  of 
the  Italian  people  loved  them  too,  and  was  glad  to  weave 
them  into  the  great  epic. 

In  the  same  spirit  he  placed  in  Italy  the  entrance  by 
which  Aeneas  made  his  way  into  the  lower  world.  Odysseus 
had  gone  sailing  over  the  sea,  no  man  knew  where,  to  find  a 
way  ;  but  Virgil,  true  to  Italy  and  to  Italy's  legends,  reasserts 
the  old  popular  story.  Lucretius  had  refuted  it  a  generation 
before  with  elaborate  etymological  and  scientific  explanations 
and  parallels — 

ianua  ne  forte  his  Orci  regionibus  esse 

credatur,  post  hinc  animas  Acheruntis  in  oras 

ducere  forte  deos  manes  inferne  reamur  ^  (Lucr.  vi.  763). 

Virgil  had  read  the  passage,  for  he  borrows  a  striking 
phrase  from  it,^  and  we  may  remember  his  Epicureanism  of 
the  first  Georgic.  Had  he  been  cross-questioned,  he  must 
have  confessed  to  sharing  the  belief  of  Lucretius,  but  here  is 
one  striking  difference  between  the  two  poets.  Lucretius 
will  pursue  truth  into  prose  ;  Virgil,  on  the  other  hand,  will 
avail  himself  of  legend,  though,  as  here,  it  may  be  scientifi- 
cally demonstrated  to  be  untrue,  if  by  use  of  it  he  may 
develop  some  higher  and  poetic  truth.  And,  whether  we 
allegorize  it  or  not,  there  is  suggestion  in  the  idea  that  to 

^  A.  xi.  562  sotiitere  undae,  rapzdum  super  amnem  |  infelix  fiigit  in  iaculo 
stridetite  Camilla.  Her  figure,  says  Conington,  *'  is  a  bright  relief  to  the  tedium  of 
the  Virgilian  battle." 

•^  Servius,  ad  A.  vii.  68i.  ^  A.  viii.  251. 

*  Varro,  R.  R.  ii.  4.  18,  says  bronze  images  of  the  sow  and  the  pigs  are  to  be 
seen  at  Lavinium,  et  corpus  matris  ab  sacerdotibus,  quod  in  salsura  fuerit, 
demonstratur.  Virgil  disposed  of  it  differently,  A.  viii.  81-5.  Dion.  H.  Ant. 
Rom.  i.  56,  57,  also  has  the  tale. 

*  "  That  the  gate  of  Orcus  be  not  haply  believed  to  exist  in  such  spots  ;  and 
next  we  imagine  that  the  manes  gods  from  below  do  haply  draw  souls  down  from 
them  to  the  borders  of  Acheron  "  (Munro). 

*  Remigium  alarum,  Aen.  vi.  19;  remigi peiinarum,  Lucr.  vi.  743. 


ii6  VIRGIL 

reach  the  other  world  we  have  not  far  to  go  over  the  sea,  that 
the  entrance  is  at  our  feet,  here  in  Italy. 

This  contrast  may  be  traced  still  further.  Lucretius'  poem 
abounds  in  close  and  brilliant  observation  of  nature,  and 
with  the  instinct  of  the  man  of  science  he  links  together 
what  he  sees,  and  makes  one  thing  illustrate  another,  as  he 
expounds  some  general  principle  to  cover  all  the  cases.  His 
observations  were  uniformly  made  in  Italy ;  their  subjects 
are  familiar  sights  of  the  countr}'side  and  also  of  the  seaside. 
Virgil  is  not  so  spontaneous  an  observer,  but  he  too  observes 
with  care  and  precision,  looking,  as  a  rule,  in  accordance 
with  his  instincts,  landward.  But  the  great  difference  is 
here.  Lucretius  obviously  delights  in  observation  because 
it  leads  him  to  the  apprehension  and  confirmation  of  the 
principles  of  nature.  Virgil  watches  nature,  because  it  is 
nature,  and  because  it  is  also  Italian  nature,  and  every 
fresh  discovery  makes  Italy  dearer  to  him — 

Contented  if  he  might  enjoy 

The  things  which  others  understand. 

The  charm  of  Italy  does  not  depend  on  legends.  It  is 
the  country  itself,  its  beauty,  the  simple  natural  features, 
that  Virgil  gives  back  to  his  reader.  Macrobius  contrasts 
Virgil's  "catalogue"  with  Homer's.  Homer  begins  with 
Boeotia,  "  not  for  any  special  merit  of  Boeotia,  but  he 
chooses  a  celebrated  promontory  to  start  from,"  and  then  in 
a  systematic  way  works  through  the  geography  of  Greece. 
Virgil  unhappily  forgets  geography  and  tangles  Clusium, 
Populonia,  and  Pisa,  then  flies  back  to  Caere  and  other 
places  near  Rome,  and  off  again  to  Liguria  and  Mantua.^ 
We  can  perhaps  forgive  him.  His  interest  is  in  the  places, 
and  their  people.  He  speaks  of  what  most  charmed  and 
interested  him  in  the  places  when  he  saw  them;  of  "steep 
Praeneste  and  the  fields  of  Juno  of  Gabii,  cool  Anio,  and 
the  Hernican  rocks  dewy  with  streams  "  (vii.  682) — and  if  we 
could  not  draw  a  map  from  his  account  of  Italy,  we  know 

1  Macrobius,  Sa/.  v.  15.  Similarly  in  the  review  of  Roman  heroes  in  bk.  vi, 
it  has  been  remarked  that  Virgil  has  not  thought  it  his  duty  to  deal  with 
them  in  chronological  order. 


ITALY  117 

the  country,  we  have  seen  it  with  a  poet's  eyes.  We  see  the 
olive-groves  of  Mutusca  (vii.  711),  "the  Massic  lands  glad 
with  wine"  (vii.  725),  and  Abella  city  looking  down  from 
amid  her  apple  orchards  (vii.  740).^  We  pass  from  stream 
to  lake,  from  "the  shallows  of  Volturnus  river"  (vii.  728)  to 
"  Mincius,  child  of  Benacus,  draped  in  grey  reeds"  (x.  205) ^  ; 
from  the  strange  Lake  Amsanctus  among  its  woods  ^  (vii.  563) 
to  Fucinus  of  the  glassy  waters  ^  (vii.  759) ;  from  where  "  the 
ploughshare  goes  up  and  down  on  the  Rutulian  hills  and 
the  ridge  of  Circe  "  (vii.  798)  to  "  where  the  marsh  of  Satura 
lies  black,  and  cold  Ufens  seeks  his  way  along  the  valley- 
bottoms  and  sinks  into  the  sea"  (vii.  801).  Descriptions  like 
these  could  not  fail  to  touch  the  hearts  of  those  who  loved 
their  country,  and  open  the  eyes  of  those  who  had  never 
known  their  native  land. 

Virgil  was  perhaps  not  so  keen  an  observer  of  the  life  of 
Nature  as  Lucretius,  but  he  loved  her  as  much,  perhaps  even 
more,  and  here  as  elsewhere  love  is  more  potent  than 
intellect  to  find  truth.  In  the  Aeneid  he  is  of  course  more 
specially  concerned  with  man,  and  we  learn  more  of  Nature 
from  the  Eclogues  and  Georgics.  Yet  there  is  the  same 
character  running  through  all  his  work.  A  German  critic^ 
emphasizes  that  in  the  Eclogues  the  flowers  and  plants  are 
not  mere  aesthetic  additions  to  the  pictures,  but  belong  to 

^  It  is  here  that  a  dash  of  poetry  comes  into  Varro's  scientific  and  patriotic 
explanation  of  why  Italy  is  a  more  cultivated  land  than  any  in  the  world. 
He  speaks  of  zones,  climates,  &c.,  and  then  he  asks,  non  arboribus  consita 
Italia  ut  iota  poviaruim  videaturl  Re  Rust.  i.  2.  6.  The  old  Cilician  pirate  of 
the  Georgics  will  occur  to  the  reader,  and  how  in  old  age  he  took  to  growing 
flowers  on  a  patch  of  waste  land  under  Oebalia's  towers  (C  iv.  125).  Lecky 
(European  Morals,  i.  265)  finds  a  strange  anticipation  of  Cowper's  thought  that 
"God  made  the  country,  and  man  made  the  town"  {Task,  i.  749)  in  Varro — 
Divina  natura  dedit  agros  ;  ars  humana  aedificavit  u7-bes. 

^  One  may  recall  here  the  pleasant  phrase  of  Juvencus,  not  the  meanest  of 
Virgil's  lovers  and  imitators,  when  he  speaks  of  his  master — Mittciadae  dulcedo 
Maronis,  Praef.  ii.  9. 

*  Lago  Amsanto  still  exhales  its  sulphuretted  hydrogen  (Deeckc,  Italy,  p.  72), 
but  its  woods  are  gone. 

*  See  Deecke,  p. '107,  on  Fucinus.  In  1875,  by  means  of  a  tunnel,  36,000 
acres  of  arable  land  were  reclaimed  from  the  lake,  and  the  hold  of  malaria 
upon  the  region  reduced. 

'  E.  Glaser,  Publiiis  Virgilius  Maro  ah  Natitrdichtcr  und  Theist  (Giitersloh, 
1880),  pp.  20-1. 


ii8  VIRGIL 

them,  and  are  an  essential  and  inseparable  part  of  them. 
The  poet  is  intimately  concerned  with  all  that  lives  and 
moves.  It  is  all  Italian.  How  full  the  Georgics  are  of 
Italian  nature  needs  no  mention  here.  In  like  manner 
Virgil  uses  by  preference  the  trees,  the  birds,  and  beast?  of 
Italy  for  his  similes  in  the  Aeneid.  His  fancy  for  the 
musical  names  of  Greek  poetry  may  lead  him  to  call  his 
cranes  "  Strymonian  "  (x.  265),  and  to  picture  his  swans  in  the 
"Asian  fen"  (vii.  701),  but  we  may  be  sure  that  it  was  in  no 
Asian  fen  that  he  learnt  the  swan's  note,  but  "among  the 
vocal  pools  on  the  fish-filled  river  of  Padusa"  (a  mouth  of 
the  Po,  xi.  456).  And  note  that  the  swans  are  compared  to 
Italian  troops  singing  their  king  as  they  go — 

With  measured  pace  they  march  along, 
And  make  their  monarch's  deeds  their  song  ; 
Like  snow-white  swans  in  liquid  air, 
When  homeward  from  their  food  they  fare, 
And  far  and  wide  melodious  notes 
Come  rippling  from  their  slender  throats, 
While  the  broad  stream  and  Asia's  fen 
Reverberate  to  the  sound  again. 
Sure  none  had  thought  that  countless  crowd 

A  mail-clad  company ; 
It  rather  seemed  a  dusky  cloud 
Of  migrant  fowl,  that,  hoarse  and  loud 

Press  landward  from  the  sea  (vii.  698-705,  Conington).^ 

When  Virgil  describes  the  thronging  of  the  dead  to  the  bank  of 
Acheron,  he  uses  Bacchylides'  simile  of  the  wind  driving  the 
fallen  leaves,^  though  he  introduces  a  characteristic  touch  of 
his  own,  autuinni  frigore prinio?  To  this  he  adds  "  birds  that 
swarm  landward  from  the  deep  gulf,  when  the  chill  of  the  year 
routs  them  overseas  and  drives  them  to  sunny  lands  "  (vi,  310). 
He  must  have  watched  them  on  the  Adriatic  shore  of  Italy. 

^  VVarde  Fowler,  A  Year  -with  the  Birds  (2nd  ed.),  p.  153,  says  this  swan  is  the 
Cyoms  musictts,  or  "  whooper."  In  Northern  Europe  it  is  the  bird  associated 
with  the  charming  swan-princesses  of  fairy  tale. 

^  Bacchylides,  v.  63  tvda  dvaravwv  ^poTuv  |  \pvx^s  eddrj  -Kapa,  'Kwkvtov 
peedpoLS,  I  old  re  <pvX\'  dvefMos  |  "I5as  dvd  /xtjXo^o'toi'S  |  irpiZvas  dpyrjcrrds  dovei. 

^  "  At  the  first  cold  of  Autumn." 


ITALY  119 

One  very  interesting  question  rises  in  connexion  with 
Virgil's  birds.  In  the  third  Eclogue  (^6^)  he  speaks  of  the 
stock-dove  nesting — 

Namque  notavi 
Ipse  locum,  aeriae  quo  congessere  palumbes.^ 

In  the  Georgics  he  pictures  the  rook  {corvits)  returning  to  its 
brood  at  the  approach  of  rain.^  But  to-day  it  is  doubtful  if 
the  stock-dove  breeds  at  all  in  Italy,  and  the  rook  does  so 
only  in  the  sub-Alpine  region.  The  swan,  once  familiar  in  the 
region  of  Mantua,*  is  now  rarely  to  be  seen,  while  the  stork 
with  the  other  birds  passes  over  Italy  for  northern  latitudes. 
How  are  we  to  explain  this  ?  Are  we  to  say  that  Virgil  is  a 
bad  observer,  or  can  we  save  his  credit?*  It  seems  in  fact 
that  the  explanation  lies  in  a  change  in  the  Italian  country 
and  climate.°  The  great  forests  are  gone,  and  with  them  the 
cooler  air,  which  the  breeding  bird  seeks  ;  and  the  swamps 
and  marshes  of  the  swans  and  storks  have  been  dried  up  by 
drainage  and  by  the  clearing  of  the  forests.  Ufens,  Conington 
says,  has  no  longer  to  look  for  a  way,  for  one  has  been  dug 
for  him. 

But  one  inhabitant  of  the  marshes  is  still  to  be  found 
where  he  was  in  Virgil's  days.  The  wild  boar,  to  which  he 
compares  Mezentius,  is  still  there — 

Long  fostered  in  Laurentum's  fen 

'Mid  reeds  and  marish  ground  {A.  x.  709). 

It  was  there  that  Pliny  hunted  him,  notebook  {pugillares)  in 
hand  ;  and  there  he  is  hunted  to-day,  probably  as  he  was  then, 
but  without  notebooks.*' 

'  "  For  I  have  marked  the  place,  where  the  doves  have  built  high  in  air." 

*  G.  i.  414  Progeniem  parvam  dnlcesqiie  revisere  nidos. 
3  G.  ii.  198— 

Et  qualem  infelix  aviisit  Mantua  campum 
pasccntem  niveos  herboso  Jlumine  cycnos. 

*  The  reader  may  recall  the  terrible  efforts  made  to  keep  the  lark  from  the 
window  in  V Allegro, 

5  Warde  Fowler,  op.  cit.  pp.  143,  148,  153.  Similar  observations  of  change 
in  the  climate  are  being  made  in  North  America  to-day.  Cf.  Deecke,  Italy,  p. 
185,  on  the  forests  of  Italy,  of  which  he  gives  a  somewhat  melancholy  account. 

*  Cf.  Boissier,  Country  of  Horace  and  Virgil  (tr. ),  pp.  304-6,  and  Pliny, 
Epp.  i.  6. 


I20  VIRGIL 


II 


From  the  country  we  pass  to  the  people.^  There  are 
readers  to  whom  the  second  half  of  the  Aeneid  seems  to  be 
remote,  if  not  rather  dull ;  the  poet  seems  to  have  fallen 
from  the  heights  he  reached  in  the  earlier  books.  But  this 
is  hardly  Virgil's  view.  As  an  Italian,  it  would  seem  to  him 
that  now  w^as  the  moment  when  his  poem  touched  the  heart 
most  nearly,  when  it  told — 

quibus  Itala  iam  tum 
floruerit  terra  alma  viris  (vii.  643) — 

how  even  then  {ia^n  turn)  the  dear  motherland  flowered  with 
heroes.  The  metaphor  is  a  fine  one.  Flowers  are  the 
natural  outcome  of  right  seed  in  right  soil. 

On  the  other  hand,  there  are  those  to  whom  Virgil  seems 
to  have  lost  his  opportunity.  What  might  he  not  have  told 
of  old  Italian  wont  and  use,  if  only  he  had  been  willing  to 
sink  the  poem  in  the  dictionary  ?  Virgil  is  quite  sensible 
of  the  picturesque  aspect  of  his  subject,^  but  it  is  as  a  poet 
rather  than  as  an  antiquary.  Latin  scholars  of  a  later  day 
loved  to  think  of  him  as  one  of  themselves,  but  it  was  an 
injustice  to  him.  Thus  while  he  tells  us  of  the  dress  and 
arms  of  this  ancient  tribe  and  that,  the  charge  which  Carlyle 
brought  against  Scott,  that  he  drew  his  men  from  the  jerkin 
inward,  does  not  lie  against  Virgil.  He  is  more  interested  in 
the  character  of  the  people  than  their  clothing.  It  is  on  this 
that  he  spends  most  care.  He  is  a  philosophic  student  of 
history,  and  he  is  tracing  for  us  the  emergence  of  the  higher 
life  of  Italy  from  barbarism.  He  watches  throughout  the 
process  the  continuance  of  the  strong  and  worthy  qualities 

'^  Pandite  nunc  Helicotia  deae  {A.  vii.  641 ).     Virgil's  invocation  may  be  compared 
with  Spenser's,  when  he  comes  to  his  Chronicle  of  Briton  Kings  (F.  Q.  ii.  x.) — 
"Who  now  shall  give  unto  me  words  and  sound 
Equal  unto  this  haughty  enterprise  ?  "     &c. 
2  See   Bernard    Bosanquet,   Hist,   of  Aesthetic,   p.   92,    on   Virgil's   praise   of 
Italy,    in   which   he   finds   blended   affection   for   the   scenery,    historical   senti- 
ment,   the   sentiment   of  national   duty,    "heightened   by   appreciation   of    the 
picturesqueness  in  life  and  manners,  produced   by  the  relations  of  Rome  with 
all  quarters  of  the  known  world." 


ITALY  121 

that  underlay  the  barbarism,  and  he  shows  their  independence 
of  it.  Remulus  Numanus  is  a  survival  of  the  old  days  and 
the  old  ways,  but  every  manly  attribute  he  boasts  for  his 
people  survives  in  Evander  and  Pallas,  not  a  whit  lessened, 
though  refined.  We  shall  understand  the  whole  scope  and 
purpose  of  the  Acneid  more  truly,  if  we  realize  that  the  work 
of  Aeneas,  like  that  of  every  man  who  has  helped  mankind 
forward,  has  been  heralded  by  many  another  working  in  the 
same  direction  and  with  a  similar  inspiration.  The  rise  of 
Italy  is  the  theme  of  the  whole  book  and  of  its  parts — 

Romanam  condere  gentem. 

There  is  occasional  vagueness  in  Virgil's  account  of  early 
Italy,  but  it  is  possible  to  collect  a  tolerably  consistent  story 
from  what  he  says.  Let  us  begin  with  Evander  on  Italian 
history  (viii.  314  f.).  "In  these  woodlands  dwelt  fauns  and 
nymphs  sprung  of  the  soil,  and  a  tribe  of  men  born  of 
stocks  and  hard  oak,  who  had  neither  law  nor  grace  ol 
life ;  they  never  learnt  to  yoke  the  ox,  nor  to  garner  their 
stores,  nor  to  husband  what  they  got ;  but  the  boughs 
nurtured  them  and  the  hard  living  of  the  hunter."  (It 
is  very  characteristic  of  the  good  Italian  to  regard  the  men 
as  barbarians  who 

haud  componere  opes  norant  aut  parcere  parto.^ 

Thrift  was  the  first  virtue  of  civilization.)  Saturn  brought 
civilization  into  Italy,  and  after  him  came  others,  not  all 
of  his  mind.  Last,  Evander  himself,  like  Saturn  an  exile, 
"  driven  from  his  native  land  and  voyaging  to  the  ends  of 
the  seas,  all-powerful  Fortune  and  inevitable  Destiny  set 
on  these  shores."  Progress  has  not  had  an  uninterrupted 
course,  and  there  are  plenty  of  barbarians  yet,  though  the 
people   are  not   content   v/ith   them.     Mezentius    has   been 

^  Cf.  Horace's  account  of  the  country  mouse,  who  is  a  thorough  Italian 
peasant,  asper  et  attenttis  quaesitis  {S.  ii.  6.  82).  The  mouse,  however,  is  as 
hospitable  as  Evander  himself,  to  do  him  justice.  We  may  again  compare 
Spenser  {F.  Q.  ii.  x.  7)  on  the  early  inhabitants  of  Albion  who  "by  hunting  and 
by  spoiling  liveden,"  though  in  the  case  of  our  own  land  the  Trojan  "Brutus, 
anciently  deriv'd,  From  roiall  stocke  of  old  Assaracs  line  "  abolished  the  savage 
foe.     Italy's  story,  as  we  shall  see,  was  different. 


122  VIRGIL 

expelled  from  Etruria,  and  Turnus  has  to  face  a  hostile 
party  among  his  people.  These  men  still  represent  brutality 
and  violence,  qualities  not  incompatible  in  the  case  of 
Mezentius  with  a  certain  chivalry  and  deep  affection. 

Remulus  pictures  a  midway  stage  between  the  earliest 
barbarism  and  the  new  civilization.  He  is  of  the  school 
and  family  of  Turnus,  and  on  the  whole  prefers  the 
barbarism.  Still,  he  emphasizes  some  of  the  real  virtues 
of  the  Italian.  "  A  hardy  breed,"  he  says,  "  we  carry  our 
new-born  sons  to  the  streams,  and  harden  them  in  the  cruel 
cold  of  the  waters.  Our  boys  spend  wakeful  nights  in 
hunting  and  tire  out  the  woodland  ;  their  sport  is  to  rein 
the  steed  and  level  shafts  with  the  bow.  Our  youth, 
schooled  to  labour  and  trained  to  want,  subdues  the  soil 
with  the  mattock  and  shakes  the  city  walls  with  battle. 
All  our  life  bears  the  mark  of  iron ;  to  prick  the  steer's 
flank  we  turn  our  spear.  Old  age,  which  dulls  the  force 
of  all  else,  weakens  not  our  strength  of  spirit  nor  abates 
our  vigour.  White  hairs  bear  the  helmet,  and  it  is  ever 
our  delight  to  bring  home  fresh  spoil  and  live  by  plunder  " 
(ix.  603-13).! 

Some  of  this  was  not  new. 

Patiens  operum  parvoque  adsueta  iuventus 

was  a  phrase  Virgil  had  used  in  the  Georgics;-  when  he  was 
praising  country  life. 

O  fortunatos  nimium  sua  si  bona  norint 
agricolas^  {G.  ii.  458), 

he  cries  ;  and  this  character  is  part  of  thejr  blessedness  ;  but, 
where  Remulus  adds  his  vivere  rapio,  Virgil  prefers  to 
emphasize  sacra  deu7n  sanctique  patres. 

Now  if  we  turn  once  more  to  Evander,  we  shall  find  this 
latter  combination  in  his  little  town  of  Pallanteum.  He 
himself  and  his  son  Pallas  fall  short  in   no  degree  of  the 

"^  Cf.  Hymn  to  Demetrius  Poliorcetes  AItuXikov  yap  apirdaai.  rd  twu  iriXas, 
*  Geo7-g.  ii.  472,  but  {ox  parvo  he  there  has  exiguo.     See  ch.  i.  §  v.  p.  36. 
3  "  O  happy,  beyond  human  happiness,  had  they  but  a  sense  of  their  blessings, 
the  husbandmen  "  (Conington). 


ITALY  123 

manhood  of  Turnus,  but  it  is  significant  that  when  first  we 
see  them  they  are  engaged  in  sacrifice  to  Hercules.  They 
represent  in  the  heroic  age  all  the  virtues  of  Roman  and 
Italian  at  the  best  period  of  their  history — simplicity, 
dignity,  hardness,  faith,  courage,  and  piety.  And  these  men 
are  the  allies  of  Aeneas.  When  he  welcomes  Aeneas  to  his 
house,  Evander  bids  him  enter  in  a  sentence  which  probably 
sums  up  his  own  philosophy  of  life  and  perhaps  the  poet's,  a 
sentence  which  has  not  lost  its  charm  and  its  value — Fenelon, 
we  are  told,  could  never  read  it  without  tears — 

aude,  hospes,  contemnere  opes  et  te  quoque  dignum 
finge  deo,  rebusque  veni  non  asper  egenis  ^  (viii.  364). 

Ill 

To  such  an  Italy  the  Trojans  came.  If  it  is  to  them  the 
land  of  promise,  they  are  no  less  promised  to  Italy.  They 
are  to  deliver  the  Etruscans  from  the  rule  of  Mezentius — a 
symbolic  action.  They  are  to  bring  to  Italy  all  that  is 
signified  to  a  Trojan  by  Troy,  all  that  Evander  found 
wanting  in  the  old  life  of  the  country — mos  and  cultus — 

pacisque  imponere  morem. 

They  are  to  bring  the  gods  to  Italy ;  indeed,  they  find  some 
of  their  own  gods  waiting  them;  Cybele  is  already  an 
effective  power  in  the  Tiber. 

M.  Boissier  even  held  that  the  Aeneid  is  a  religious  epic, 
and  that  the  chief  purpose  of  Aeneas  is  this  introduction  of 
the  gods  into  Latium.  But  Virgil  at  least  links  with  this 
another  idea,  which  elsewhere  seems  to  overshadow  it. 
Take  these  lines — 

Multa  quoque  et  bello  passus,  dum  conderet  urbem 
inferretque  deos  Latio — genus  unde  Latinum 
Albanique  patres  atque  altae  moenia  Romae  ^  {A.  i.  5) 

^  "  Dare  thou,  my  guest,  to  despise  riches  ;  mould  thyself  to  like  dignity  of  god- 
head, and  come  not  harsh  to  our  poverty  "  (Mackail),  Quoque,  because  Evander  is 
referring  to  the  visit  of  Hercules  to  that  house. 

*  "  Much  too  he  suffered  in  war,  ere  he  might  found  a  city  and  bring  his  gods 
into  Latium  ;  from  whom  is  the  Latin  race,  the  fathers  of  Alba,  and  the  walls  of 
lofty  Rome." 


124  VIRGIL 

with  the  line  a  little  below,  in  which  he  sums  up  his  theme 
again — 

Tantae  molis  erat  Romanam  condere  gentem^  (i.  33). 

Virgil  had  not  been  an  Epicurean  for  nothing.  The  gods 
whom  Aeneas  was  bringing  to  Rome  the  poet  might  now 
recognize  as  symbols  of  divinity,  but  he  could  scarcely 
attach  such  superlative  importance  to  these  particular 
symbols.  At  any  rate  for  the  reader  their  significance  is 
rather  slight. ^  Aeneas  carefully  brought  them  from  Troy,  but 
it  is  clear  that  they  derive  their  importance  from  Rome, 
and  that  Rome  does  not  owe  her  importance  to  them. 

The  foundation  of  Rome — of  the  Roman  race — is  the 
centre  of  the  whole  story,  but  Rome  is  to  be  no  Trojan 
town  nor  her  people  Trojans.  She  is  to  be  rather  the 
summing  up  of  all  that  is  excellent  in  Italy.  The  Trojan 
element  reaffirms  the  ideals  of  the  Italian  race ;  all  it  does 
is  to  add  the  slight  touch  that  changes  nothing  while  it 
alters  everything. 

This  is  brought  out  by  the  speech  in  which  Juno  makes 
her  submission  to  Fate,  and  by  Jupiter's  reply.^  By  a 
certain  looseness  in  regard  to  the  letter,  Conington  has 
given  a  heightened  expression  to  the  spirit,  and  the  passages 
may  be  quoted  in  his  rendering.     Juno  concludes — 

Vouchsafe  me  yet  one  act  of  grace 
For  Latium's  sake,  your  sire's  own  race : 
No  ordinance  of  fate  withstands 
The  boon  a  nation's  pride  demands. 
When  treaty,  aye,  and  love's  blest  rite 
The  warring  hosts  in  peace  unite. 
Respect  the  ancient  stock,  nor  make 
The  Latin  tribes  their  style  forsake. 
Nor  Troy's  nor  Teucer's  surname  take, 
Nor  garb  nor  language  let  them  change 

^  "  So  mighty  a  task  it  was  to  found  the  race  of  Rome." 

^  In  A.  iii.  147  they  come  in  a  dream  to  Aeneas  and  bid  him  seek  Italy,  promis- 
ing fame  and  empire  to  him  and  to  his  race. 
^  A.  xii.  791-840. 


ITALY  125 

For  foreign  speech  and  vesture  strange, 

But  still  abide  the  same  : 
Let  Latium  prosper  as  she  will, 
Their  thrones  let  Alban  monarchs  fill  ; 
Let  Rome  be  glorious  on  the  earth, 
The  centre  of  Italian  worth  ; 
But  fallen  Troy  be  fallen  still 

The  nation  and  the  name. 

Jupiter  replies — 

Ausonia  shall  abide  the  same 
Unchanged  in  customs,  speech,  and  name : 
The  sons  of  Troy,  unseen  though  felt 
In  fusion  with  the  mass  shall  melt : 
Myself  will  give  them  rites,  and  all 
Still  by  the  name  of  Latins  call. 
The  blended  race  that  thence  shall  rise 

Of  mixed  Ausonian  blood 
Shall  soar  alike  o'er  earth  and  skies 

So  pious,  just,  and  good. 

The  Italy  of  Aeneas  is  not  externally  like  the  Italy  of 
Augustus.  The  golden  Capitol  of  Augustus  has  replaced 
the  brakes  and  bushes  of  Evander's  day,  but  the  god,  the 
unknown  god,  who  haunted  the  place  in  the  Arcadian 
times  haunts  it  still,  and  now  he  is  known  as  the  Roman 
Jupiter.  The  race  is  still  the  same.  Italians  they  were 
when  Aeneas  came,  and  after  a  thousand  years  the  strength 
of  Rome  is  still  the  Italians.  Nor  is  this  all,  for  with  the 
blood  the  character  still  prevails.     The  Italians  are  still 

patiens  operum  parvoque  adsueta  iuventus, 

and    the   words   of  Evander  are  still  the  key-note  of  that 
character  which  brought  the  world  under  the  sway  of  Italy. 


CHAPTER  VI 
THE  LAND  AND  THE  NATION.— 2.  ROME 

Gloriosa  dicia  stmt  de  te,  civilas  Dei. 

WHAT  is  it,"  asks  M.  Patin,  "that  makes  the 
story  of  Aeneas  establishing  himself  in  Italy 
into  a  Roman  epic?  It  is  the  eminently 
national  character  of  the  legend  used  by  the  poet ;  it  is 
also  something  more  closely  concerned  with  his  art — I 
mean  the  perspectives  continually  opened  down  the  history 
of  Rome,  which,  seen  thus  from  the  heart  of  the  fable,  as 
it  were  from  a  distance,  becomes  what  it  never  yet  had  been 
with  Virgil's  predecessors — poetic,  epic." 

In  the  preceding  chapter  we  discussed  Virgil's  feeling  for 
Italy,  and  it  remains  to  consider  what  he  has  to  say  of 
the  city  which  made  the  land  one,  and  what  of  its  race  of 
soldiers  and  citizens.  It  will  hardly  be  needful  to  repeat 
that  Virgil  will  look  deeper  than  many  other  patriots  and 
poets  for  the  grounds  and  meaning  of  Rome's  greatness. 
He  will  probably  not  be  so  ready  as  some  of  his  fellow 
citizens,  varicosi  centuriones,  to  find  the  cause  and  the 
justification  of  Rome's  rule  in  her  strong  arm.  That  theory 
he  leaves  for  Remulus  Numanus,  the  Rob  Roy  of  Latium. 

The  good  old  rule,  the  ancient  plan, 
That  they  should  take,  who  have  the  power, 
And  they  should  keep  who  can, 

has  its  parallel  in 

semperque  recentis 
comportare  iuvat  praedas  et  vivere  rapto  ^  (ix.  612). 

It  was  not  merely  the  theory  of  Remulus ;  it  was  also  the 
idea   underlying    Sulla's    constitution — the   divine    right   of 

^  "  Ever  fresh  booty  it  is  our  delight  to  gather  and  to  live  by  plunder." 
126 


ROME  127 

the  senate  to  misgovern  and  to  plunder  as  long  as  there 
was  a  decent  equality  of  opportunities.  This  theory  was 
hardly  likely  to  commend  itself  to  Virgil  the  philosopher 
any  more  than  to  Virgil  the  farmer — barbarus  has  segetes} 
It  had  brought  endless  misery  upon  mankind,  and  it  had 
ruined  the  old  Republic.  It  offended  the  patriot,  who 
thought  of  his  country  as  larger  than  2Lny  pomoerium  conld 
encircle.  It  repelled  the  thinker,  who  had  caught  the  spirit 
of  the  gentler  philosophy  of  later  Greece.  It  shocked  the 
poet. 

Felix  qui  potuit  rerum  cognoscere  caussas.^ 

So  Virgil  wrote  of  Nature  and  her  laws,  and  we  may  be 
sure  he  would  apply  the  same  language  to  the  history 
of  man.  Why  did  Rome  conquer  the  world  ?  Or,  to 
put  it  otherwise,  what  end  does  Rome's  dominion  of 
the  world  serve?  What  is  Rome's  moral  title  to  rule? 
Questions  which  not  every  one  asked,  but  questions  on  the 
answers  to  which  a  poet  felt  everything  depended. 

But  there  are  other  things  which  come  into  a  poet's 
view — the  life  of  man  with  its  endless  variety  of  form  and 
spirit,  all  the  ways  in  which  human  nature  seeks  to  express 
itself,  all  the  things  which  shallower  reflection  would  call 
external,  but  which  the  poet  loves  as  the  outcome  of 
something  within — garb,  phrase,  and  usage, — ambitions  and 
achievements,  failures,  too, — through  which,  through  all  of 
which,  he  sees  the  marvellous  mind  of  man,  hoping,  striving, 
failing,  but,  generation  by  generation,  gaining  ground,  never 
giving  up  the  forward  struggle. 

HoXAa  Tu  Seiua  KovSev  uvOpiairov  SeiuoTcpov  ireXei.^ 

And  of  all  the  wonderful  endowments  of  man,  the  most 
amazing,  Virgil  would  agree  with  Sophocles,  and  the  most 
godlike  are  "  speech  and  wind-swift  thought  and  all  the 
moods  that  mould  a  state  " 

Ka\  (jiOiyixa  kol  avejuoeu  (ppovrjfia  KUi  acTTVvojuovg  O/oya?.' 

^  "  Happy  he  who  could  learn  the  laws  on  which  the  world  rests." 
*  "Many  are  the  wondrous  things,  and  nought  than  man  more  wondrous." 
Sophocles,  Antigone,  332.  ^  Ibid.  354. 


128  VIRGIL 

Thus  history,  and  particularly  the  history  of  his  own  race,  is 
to  the  poet  no  empty  tale,  but  a  long  self-manifestation  of 
the  human  spirit,  of  the  utmost  interest  and  pathos  ;  and  to 
make  it  his  own,  to  interpret  it  to  himself,  and  to  bring  it 
home  to  others,  is  the  necessity  laid  upon  him. 

Nor  was  it  only  the  past  that  Virgil  found  so  full  of 
meaning ;  he  was  no  mere  antiquary,  and  the  past  would 
have  been  nothing  to  him  if  the  present  had  had  no  interest. 
The  Empire  as  he  saw  it,  and  the  City  which  was  the 
Empire's  heart,  touched  him  and  held  him.  Rome,  the 
world's  mistress,  Rome,  the  centre  of  all  the  history  of  his 
people,  was  the  Rome  he  walked  the  streets  of, — the  Rome 
he  fled  from  to  Naples, — the  Rome  his  heart  could  never 
forget.  All  these  links  that  bound  him  to  Rome  are  to  be 
found  in  the  Aeneid,  and  we  shall  not  understand  Virgil  and 
his  poem  until  we  begin  to  feel  with  him  something  of  what 
he  felt  for  Rome. 


I 

In  the  first  Eclogue  Virgil  has  recorded  his  first  impression 
of  Rome.  Tityrus  tells  Meliboeus  that  he  had  imagined 
Rome  a  sort  of  bigger  Mantua,  but  still  like  Mantua,  as  a 
big  dog  is  like  a  puppy,  but  that  he  had  found  it  something 
quite  different — something  distinct  in  the  nature  of  things. 
It  was  not  so  much  the  size  as  the  splendour  and  the  beauty 
of  Rome  that  impressed  him.  He  later  on  emphasizes  this 
explicitly  ;  Rome  is  the  most  beautiful  thing  in  the  world — 

scilicet  et  rerum  facta  est  pulcherrima  Roma^  {G.  ii.  534). 

This  judgement  is  also  Plutarch's,  who  quite  independently 
pronounces  Rome  "  the  most  beautiful  of  all  the  works  of 
man."  ^  Virgil  gently  laughs  at  the  splendid  portals  of  the 
houses  and  the  swarms  of  clients,  who  gape  at  the  door- 
posts inlaid  with  tortoise-shell,  the  gold  embroidery  and 
the   bronzes   of  Corinth    {G.   ii.  461);   but,  though   he   can 

1  "  Yes  and  Rome  has  become  the  most  beautiful  thing  in  the  world." 
*  De  fortuna  Romanorum  316  E  rwi/  dvdpuirivui'  ^pyuv  rb  KaWicrTov. 


ROME  129 

dispense  with  them,  they  have  not  escaped  him,  they  have 
made  their  appeal  to  the  quick  eyes  of  the  poet.^ 

Not  much  attention  has  been  called  to  it,  but  it  is 
certainly  remarkable  what  a  charm  the  great  city  had  for 
this  poet  of  country  life.  He  had  been  caught  by  the  spell 
of  the  "rivers  gliding  under  the  ancient  walls"  of  Italy, 
and  of  such  little  towns  as  Abella  on  its  hill -top  among 
the  orchards  ;  but  the  power  of  a  great  city  is  different,  and 
does  not  always  appeal  to  the  mind  that  Abella  will 
fascinate.  Yet  it  is  hard  to  think  he  was  not  moved 
himself,  when  we  read  of  the  effect  of  the  sight  of  Carthage 
on  Aeneas — the  towers,  the  great  stones  in  the  walls,  the 
temples,  the  theatre ;  yes,  but  also  the  harbour,  the  life  and 
movement  of  the  streets,  and  the  7ioise  of  a  great  city — 

Miratur  portas  strepitumque  et  strata  viarum  2  (i.  422). 

Where  Juvenal  and  Horace  draw  pictures,  vivid  and 
realistic,  of  the  streets  of  Rome  and  the  discouraging  details 

^  Facihs  ociili,  A.  viii.  310.  A  poet  is  the  best  interpreter  of  a  poet,  and 
even  if  it  seems  a  shade  irrelevant,  the  reader  may  be  reminded  of  Browning's 
conception  of  a  poet  at  large  in  the  streets  of  a  town.  The  whole  poem  should 
be  studied. 

He  walked  and  tapped  the  pavement  with  his  cane, 

Scenting  the  world,  looking  it  full  in  face  .   .  . 

He  stood  and  watched  the  cobbler  at  his  trade, 

The  man  who  slices  lemons  into  drink  .   .  . 

He  took  such  cognizance  of  men  and  things, 

If  any  beat  a  horse,  you  felt  he  saw  ; 

If  any  cursed  a  woman,  he  took  note  ; 

Yet  stared  at  nobody.  (How  it  strikes  a  Contemporary.) 

Horace  confesses  to  a  weakness  for  loafing  and  looking  round  the  streets 
(Sat.  i.  6,  III),  but  for  all  his  looking,  I  think  he  saw  less  than  Virgil. 

*  "  He  marvels  at  the  gates  and  the  noise  and  the  paved  ways."  Strata 
viarum  :  note  here  what  Strabo  says  of  Rome,  c.  235  ovroi  (the  Romans) 
wpoiiv&rjcrav  /iaKiffra  wv  iLXiyuiprjcTav  iKeivoi  (the  Greeks),  arpJicrews  oSoJv  Kal  vdaruv 
ela-aywyT}^  Kal  vTrovo/Mwv  tuv  dvva/M^vuiv  (kk\v^€i.v  to.  XvfxaTa  t^s  TrdXews  els  tw 
Ti^epiv.  effTpucrav  8^  Kal  rds  Kara  t7)v  xwpai'  65oi's  .  .  .  the  ancients  (c.  236) 
neglected  the  beauty  of  Rome  tt/jos  dXXois  /xd^oat  Kal  dvayKaiorepois  ^j/res,  but 
later,  and  especially  in  these  days  of  Augustus,  the  city  has  been  tilled  full  of 
dvadrj/j.'XTUP  iroWuv  /cat  KaXuiv.  Cf.  also  Wordsworth's  description  of  London 
Pretude,  bk.  vii — 

The  quick  dance 
Of  colours,  lights,  and  forms  ;  the  deafening  din  ; 
The  comers  and  the  goers  face  to  face. 


I30  VIRGIL 

which  a  poet  would  meet  there,  the  greater  poet  looks 
through  the  dust  and  the  detail,  and  feels  that 

Earth  has  not  anything  to  show  more  fair. 

If  the  Georgics  are,  as  Dean  Merivale  phrased  it,  "the 
Glorification  of  Labour,"  the  poet  recognizes  work  in  the 
great  city  too,  and  hails  it.  He  compares  the  busy  hum  of 
men  with  the  labour  of  the  bees,  and  it  is  the  poet  of  the 
fourth  Georgic  who  does  so,  sympathetic  alike  with  the 
industry  of  bees  and  men. 

It  is  curious,  too,  that  twice  he  gives  us  pictures  of 
the  sack  of  a  great  city,  with  something  of  that  feeling 
of  pain  for  the  waste  of  humanity  which  he  shows  in 
telling  of  such  a  death  as  that  of  Galaesus.^  The  fall  of 
Troy,  told  by  Aeneas  to  Dido,  may  naturally  call  for 
sympathy — 

urbs  antiqua  ruit  multos  dominata  per  annos  ^  (ii.  363). 

But  in  the  other  case  it  is  Carthage  herself,  and  the  poet 
is  haunted  by  the  pathos  of  the  scene,  the  horror  of  the 
irrational  flames  and  the  wreck  they  make  of  homes  and 
temples,  places  where  human  memories  are  clustered  most — 

non  aliter  quam  si  immissis  ruat  hostibus  omnis 
Karthago  aut  antiqua  Tyros,  flammaeque  furentes 
culmina  perque  hominum  volvuntur  perque  deorum  ^ 

(iv.  669-71). 

Nor  was  the  river  on  which  Rome  stood  without  its 
charm  for  the  poet.^     He  makes  the  river-god  at  once  the 

^  lusHssimus  unus  quifuit  (vii.  535) ;  foedatique  ora  Galaesi  (vii.  575). 

2  "  The  ancient  city  falls,  after  her  long  years  of  empire." 

•  "  Even  as  though  all  Carthage  or  ancient  Tyre  went  down,  as  the  foe  poured 
in,  and  the  flames  rolled  furious  over  the  roofs  of  house  and  temple. "  It  may  be 
noted  that  there  were  great  historic  sieges  of  both  Tyre  and  Carthage.  Kingsley, 
in  Herezvard  the  Wake,  touches  on  the  psychological  effect  of  the  flames  blazing 
in  daylight  over  a  building  with  associations  ;  and  the  spectacle  of  a  hospital 
burning  in  the  sunshine  of  a  Canadian  Christmas  remains  in  the  writer's 
mind. 

^  Fliivio  Tiberinus  amocno  (vii.  30-viii.  31)  ;  (ado  gj-atissimtis  arnnis  (viii. 
64).  Ainoenus  is,  as  Professor  Sellar  remarks,  a  strong  and  emphatic  word, 
"lovely." 


ROME  1 3 1 

friend  and  benefactor  of  Rome's  great  ancestor  (viii.  31). 
He  recalls  with  interest  its  ancient  name — 

amisit  verum  vetus  Albula  nomen  ^  (viii.  332). 

But  his  most  important  picture  of  the  river  is  that  of  Aeneas' 
first  entrance.  The  story  of  Aeneas'  coming  was  an  old  one, 
and  a  century  before  Virgil's  day  a  Roman  writer,  Fabius 
Maximus,  had  looked  at  the  Tiber  and  its  mouth,  and  given 
his  own  feelings  to  Aeneas — "  he  was  not  at  all  pleased  to 
have  come  to  a  country  so  very  bare  and  shingly."  2  «  This 
vigorous  phrase,"  says  M.  Boissier,  "  represents  to  admiration 
the  aspect  of  the  country  as  we  see  it  to-day,"  but  he  goes 
on  to  point  out  that  in  Virgil's  day  it  was  otherwise. 
Pliny  the  Elder,  in  an  interesting  chapter  on  the  river, 
says  "  it  will  admit  even  great  ships  coming  from  the 
Italian  sea,  a  most  peaceful  trafficker  in  everything  that 
the  whole  world  produces  ;  and,  one  river  as  it  is,  it  has 
almost  more  villas  than  all  the  rivers  in  all  the  lands, 
planted  and  beautiful,  upon  its  banks."  ^ 

Aeneas  reached  the  Tiber's  mouth  at  dawn.*  "And  now 
the  sea  reddened  with  shafts  of  light,  and  high  in  heaven 
yellow  Dawn  shone  in  her  rosy  car;  when  the  winds  fell,  and 
every  breath  sank  suddenly,  and  the  oar-blades  toil  through 
the  heavy  ocean-floor.  And  on  this  Aeneas  descries  from 
the  sea  a  mighty  forest.  Midway  in  it  the  pleasant  Tiber 
stream  breaks  to  sea  in  swirling  eddies,  laden  with  yellow 
sand.^     Around  and  above  fowl   many  in  sort,  that  haunt 

*  "  It  has  lost  the  true  name  of  old,  Albula." 

*  Interpolated  in  Servius,  ad  Aen.  i.  3,  Fabius  Maximus  annaliujn  prima :  turn 
Aeneas  aegre patiebatur  in  eum  devenisse  ag7um,  macerritnum  litorosissimumque. 

'  Boissier,  Ho7-ace  et  Virile,  p.  266  (Fr.)  ;  p.  248  (Engl,  tr.);  Pliny,  N.  H. 
iii-  5  (9)- 

*  VV.  Warde  Fowler,  Social  Life  at  Rome,  p.  2.  "  Virgil  showed  himself  a  true 
artist  in  bringing  his  hero  up  the  Tiber.  ...  He  saw  that  by  the  river  alone  he 
could  land  him  exactly  where  he  could  be  shown  by  his  friendly  host,  almost  at  a 
glance,  every  essential  feature  of  the  site,  every  spot  most  hallowed  by  antiquity 
in  the  minds  of  his  readers." 

*  Elsewhere  Virgil  alludes  to  the  Tiber's  habit  of  wearing  away  its  banks 
viii.  63  stringentem  ripas.  Servius  tells  us  there  that  it  was  to  this  the  river 
owed  its  ancient  name  Rumon,  quasi  ripas  ruminans  et  exedens.  It  is  possible 
that  Rome  was  named  from  the  river,  though  at  best  this  is  a  guess,     Deccke 


132  VIRGIL 

his  banks  and  the  channel  of  his  flood,  solaced  heaven  with 
song  and  flew  about  the  forest "  (vii.  25-34,  Mackail). 

Turning  now  to  the  "  sights  "  of  Rome,  we  find  that  Virgil 
manages  to  bring  some  of  them  already  into  prominence  in 
Evander's  town.  Here  is  the  cave  of  Cacus,  and  Evander 
tells  its  legend.  Here  is  the  Carmental  gate,  the  grove 
which  in  later  days  Romulus  made  his  asylum,  the  Lupercal, 
the  wood  of  Argiletum,  the  Tarpeian  rock,  the  Capitol, 
"  golden  now,  of  old  rough  with  bush  and  thicket,"  yet  even 
then  the  abode  of  a  great  god,  whom  the  Arcadian  settlers 
take  to  be  Jove  himself.  Aeneas  and  the  king  pass  on  and 
see  "the  cattle  lowing  all  about  the  Roman  forum  and  down 
the  gay  Carinae."  ^ 

It  was  not  idly  that  Virgil  gave  time  and  thought  to  these 
memorials  of  the  oldest  Rome.  The  sympathy  with  the 
primitive  and  simple  life  of  the  old  days,  expressed  in  the 
thought  which  he  gives  to  Evander — 

aude,  hospes,  contemnere  opes,  et  te  quoque  dignum 
finge  deo,  rebusque  veni  non  asper  egenis  ^  (viii.  364) — 

was  deeply  rooted  in  his  nature.  He  was  the  child  of  the 
country — bred  simply  by  rustic  parents,  in  a  land  of  woods 
and  standing  waters.  He  at  least  had  no  contempt  for  the 
old  and  poor  Rome  ;  the  Capitol  was  for  him  as  much  the 
seat  of  Juppiter  Capitolinus  in  the  days  of  bush  and  forest  as 
in  the  new  and  golden  splendours  of  his  own  day.  He  has 
no  such  feeling  as  lurks  in  the  epigram  of  Propertius — 

For  gods  of  clay  these  golden  temples  rose.^ 

More  of  reverence  dwells  in  the  greater  poet.  And  quite 
apart  from  his  sympathy  for  the  plain  life  of  the  old  days, 
these  relics  helped  him  to  realize  the  men  who  made  Rome, 
till  he  knew  them  as  Livy  did  not. 

Italy,  p.  S6,  says  the  Tiber  has  a  yellowish-brown  appearance  in  spring — the 
season  of  Aeneas'  coming,  according  to  Virgil's  indications.  On  p.  93  he  gives 
some  extraordinary  figures  as  to  the  solid  matter  carried  by  the  river. 

'^  Cf.  Propertius,  v.  I,  3  afqnc  zibi  Navali  stant  sacra  Palatia  Phoebo  \  Evandri 
profugae  concubiiere  boves. 

2  "Dare  thou,  my  guest,  to  despise  riches;  mould  thyself  to  like  dignity  of 
godhead,  and  come  not  harsh  to  our  pewerty  "  (Mackail). 

^  Prop.  V.  I.  ^Jictilibns  crevere  deis  ha£c  aurca  tenipla. 


ROME  133 

II 

Virgil  looks  upon  Roman  history  as  one  from  first  to 
last.  From  the  oldest  days  to  the  latest  there  has  been 
a  continuity  of  usage  and  religion,  a  succession  of  patriots 
and  heroes,  one  and  the  same  spirit  animating  every  great 
Roman  in  his  turn,  and  filling  with  meaning  those  rites 
which  he  learnt  from  his  father  and  taught  to  his  son. 
Aeneas  is  nobly  forgetful  of  the  ways  of  Homeric  Troy, 
and  observes  faithfully  the  religious  usages  of  historic 
Rome.  At  his  first  sacrifice  on  Italian  soil  he  veiled  his 
head,  as  bidden  by  the  seer  Helenus.^  There  is  a  legend, 
quoted  by  Servius  and  by  Plutarch,  that  he  did  this  to 
avoid  seeing  the  face  of  Diomedes ;  but  the  custom  was 
no  doubt  Roman  before  the  Romans  ever  heard  of  Dio- 
medes or  Aeneas — 

hac  casti  maneant  in  religione  nepotes  ^  {A.  iii.  409), 

says  Helenus,  a  clear  indication.  De  la  Ville  de  Mirmont 
calls  attention  to  the  further  fact  that  in  the  Aeneid 
magic  and  unlawful  rites  are  left  to  the  enemies  of  Rome.^ 
Dido  uses  magic,  and  Amata  practises  Bacchic  orgies;  for 
Aeneas  and  his  followers  the  dignified  and  ancient  ritual 
of  Rome  suffices. 

The  most  elaborate  account  given  by  Virgil  of  ritual 
and  service  concerns  the  sacrifice  to  Hercules  at  the  Ara 
Maxima.  This  sacrifice,  however,  was  offered  with  Greek 
usages,  but  it  was  of  immemorial  antiquity,  and  it  was  still 
in  Virgil's  day  a  yearly  event.  Mommsen  dissevers  Hercules 
the  Latin  god  of  gardens  from  the  Greek  Herakles,  but 
Dionysius  of  Halicarnassus^  and  Livy,^  like  Virgil,  connect 
the  feast  with  Herakles'  slaying  of  Cacus,  the  brigand  who 
stole  his  cattle — the  cattle  he  himself  had  taken  from 
Geryon.  Dionysius  indeed  says  that  that  is  the  "  more 
mythical "  story,  and  he  follows  it  up  with  a  more  surprising 
if  "truer  account,"  one  of  those  attempts  which  M.  Chassang 

*  A.  iii.  404,  545  ;  Plutarch,  Qiiaest.  Rom.  10. 

*  "  Let  the  piety  of  generations  to  come  abide  in  this  observance  "  (Conington). 

*  Ap.  de  Rhodes  et  Virgile,  p.  149  f. 

*Dion.  H.  Ant.  Rom.  i.  39-42.  *Livy,  i.  7. 


134  VIRGIL 

happily  characterizes  as  "  the  torturing  of  mythology  to  the  ^ 

detriment   of  poetry,    without    profit   to    history."  ^      Some         * 
explanation   had  to  be  given  of  the  foreign  ritual.     Livy  | 

says  it  was  the  only  foreign  ceremony  adopted  by  Romulus, 
and    suggests    that    he    had    a    prophetic    sympathy    for    a  ' 

deified  hero.  Virgil  lets  it  date,  foreign  as  it  is,  from  the  \ 
earliest  town  on  the  destined  site  of  Rome,  and  he  eliminates 
some  of  the  features  that  appear  in  Livy.  Hercules  is  a 
deliverer,  and  no  mention  is  made  of  his  being  ado  vinoque 
gravatus.^  Evander  is  very  careful  to  make  it  clear  to 
Aeneas  that  the  sacrifice  is  not  a  mere  novelty  lightly 
adopted,  as  new  religions  were  adopted  at  a  later  day  in 
Rome.^  "No  idle  superstition,"  he  says,  "that  knows  not  ., 
the  gods  of  old,  hath  ordered  these  our  solemn  rites,  this 
customary  feast,  this  altar  of  august  sanctity  ;  saved  from 
bitter  perils,  O  Trojan  guest,  do  we  worship,  and  most  due 
are  the  rites  we  inaugurate"  (viii.  185,  Mackail).  The 
proper,  traditional  priestly  families  of  Potitii  and  Pinarii 
wait  upon  the  altar,  already  and  for  ever  the  Ara  Maxima. 
The  sacrifice  is  followed  by  a  sacred  dance  of  the  Salii  and 
a  hymn  in  honour  of  the  hero.  In  the  general  revival  of 
ancient  ceremonies  under  Augustus,  the  sacrifice,  which 
does  not  seem,  to  have  fallen  into  disuse,  would  not  lose 
importance,  and  Virgil  by  this  account  of  it  links  the 
generations  together. 

It  is  curious  that,  while  Virgil  emphasizes  more  than 
once  the  poverty  of  Evander,  he  should  give  so  much 
splendour  to  Latinus,  whose  palace  has  the  most  Roman 
and  patriotic  air.  "  His  house,  vast  and  reverend,  crowned 
the  city,  upreared  on  an  hundred  columns,  once  the  palace 
of  Laurentian  Picus,  amid  awful  groves  of  ancestral  sanctity. 
Here  it  was  held  of  good  omen  that  the  kings  should 
receive  the  sceptre  and  have  their  fasces  first  raised 
before  them  ;  this  temple  was  their  senate-house  ;  this  their 

1  Chassang,  Hisioire  du  Eoi/ian,  p.  74. 

2  "  Heavy  with  food  and  wine."  Virgil  would  have  leant  to  Balaustion's 
version  of  Alcestis — eyen  against  Euripides. 

*  Tacitus,  Ann.  xv.  44  quo  cuncta  undiqtte  atrocia  ant  pudenda  confluunt 
celebrant urque.  The  historian  is  explaining  how  it  was  that  the  Christian 
religion  came  to  Rome. 


ROME  135 

sacred    banqueting-hall ;    here,  when   a   ram   was  slain,  the 
elders  were  wont  to  sit  down  at  long  tables.     Further,  there 
stood  a-row  in  the  entry  images  of  the  forefathers  of  old  in 
ancient  cedar,i   Italus,  and   father   Sabinus,  planter   of  the 
vine,  still   holding  in  show  the  curved   pruning-hook,   and 
ancient   Saturn,  and   the  likeness  of  Janus  with  two   faces, 
and  the  rest  of  the  kings  from  the  beginning,  and  they  who 
had   suffered   wounds  of  war  in  fighting   for  their  country. 
Moreover,  there  hung  much   armour  on   the  sacred  doors, 
captive  chariots  and  curved  axes,  helmet-crests  and  massy 
gateway-bars,    lances    and    shields,   and    beaks   torn    from 
war-ships.    He  too  sat  there,  with  the  augur-staff  of  Quirinus, 
girt  in  short  augural  gown,  and  carrying  on  his  left  arm  the 
sacred  shield  {ancile),  Picus  tamer  of  horses;  he  whom  Circe 
his  spouse,  blind  with  passion,  smote  with  her  golden  rod 
and   turned   by  her  poisons  into  a  bird  of  dappled  wing" 
(vii.    170-91).     "This    edifice,"  says    Conington   in    his  note 
on  the  passage,  "  combines  the  temple  and  the  senate-house. 
Virgil  has  also  employed  it  as  a  sort  of  museum  of  Roman 
antiquities."  ^     The   ceremonies  of  entering   on    office,    the 
gathering  of  the  senate,  the  archaic  statues  of  the   king's 
ancestors,  the   trophies    on    the   walls  (most   glorious    ana- 
chronism  of  all,    the  erepta  rostra   carinis),   the   lituus,   the 
trabea,  the  ancile — all  these  things  were  full  of  suggestion 
to  the   Roman   reader,   and   reminded   him  of  all  that  was 
noble  and  triumphant  in  the  national  history.     They  might 
also  remind  him  a  little  of  a  palace  and  a  temple  on  the 
Palatine,  where  another  and  a  greater  ruler  was  gathering 
up  the  nation's   traditions  in   himself,  amidst  surroundings 
as  crowded  with  revivals  of  old  memories. 

Take  again  the  description  of  the  ancient  usage  of 
Latium  in  proclaiming  war — "a  custom  kept  sacred  by 
the  Alban  cities  and  kept  to  this  day  by  Rome,  mistress 
of  the  world,  when  they  stir  the  War-God  to  enter  battle ; 

*  The  reader  will  remember  how  many  i,btx.va.  mark  the  track  of  Aeneas  through 
the  pages  of  Dionysius  of  Ualicarnassus. 

*  Robertson  Smith,  Religion  of  the  Semites,  p.  147,  on  sanctuaries  as  "  public 
parks  and  public  halls,"  and  their  use  for  the  accumulation  of  treasure.  The 
antiquarian  interest  of  Latinus'  building  is  due  to  the  spirit  of  Virgil's  age. 


136  VIRGIL 

whether  it  be  against  the  Getae  they  purpose  to  carry 
tearful  war,^  or  against  the  Hyrcanians,  or  the  Arabs,  or  to 
reach  to  India  and  track  the  Morning-Star  to  its  home  and 
reclaim  the  standards  from  the  Parthians "  (vii.  601-6). 
Here  the  last  achievement  of  Roman  power,  the  recovery  of 
the  standards  lost  by  Crassus  at  Carrhae,  is  brought  into 
connexion  with  the  remotest  antiquity  of  Rome — could 
the  continuity  of  the  nation's  life  find  more  striking 
expression  ?  For,  while  we  may  doubt,  and  Virgil  might 
agree  with  us  in  doubting,  the  existence  of  King  Latinus,  a 
religious  or  semi-religious  practice  of  this  kind  is  a  genuine 
survival  and  tells  a  tale,  much  as  the  strange  ceremonies 
employed  at  the  opening  of  Parliament — ceremonies  the 
origin  of  which  no  man  perhaps  knows  certainly — speak  of 
seven  hundred  years  of  English  history,  of  the  slow  winning 
of  freedom  and  democracy,  and  of  the  continuity  of  the 
race  through  it  all.  Nor  should  we  forget  that  Virgil,  in 
speaking  of  the  opening  of  the  twin  gates  of  War,  reminds 
his  readers  that  they  had  been  shut,  when  at  last  Rome 
had  come  within  sight  of  her  goal  of  universal  peace  under 
Augustus. 

And  more,  through  all  the  years  which  have  seen  these 
customs  live  Rome  has  never  ceased  to  be  felix prole  virum^ 
{A.  vi.  784).  With  a  fine  daring  Virgil  takes  a  picture  from 
Lucretius — the  mother  of  the  gods  in  procession ;  but  it  is 
not  as  a  type  of  Nature  that  he  uses  her,  but  as  a  parable  of 
Rome,  mother  of  heroes.  And  then,  as  if  to  match  the 
Phrygian  procession  following  the  goddess,  Virgil  lets  us 
see  these  heroes — Romulus,  the  founder;  Numa,  like  so 
many  of  the  Romans  rising  from  small  estate  to  glory, 

Curibus  parvis  et  paupere  terra 
missus  in  imperium  magnum  ^  (vi.  811); 

Brutus,  the  liberator,  unhappy  in  having  to  choose  between 
his  sons  and  his  country,  but  a  Roman  in  his  choice; 
Camillus;  the  Scipios  ;  Fabius  Maximus  the  Delayer,  saviour 

^  Notice  how  the  adjective  lacrimabile  escapes  Virgil  even  here. 

*  "  Happ3'  in  her  warrior  brood." 

'  "  Sent  from  his  homely  Cures  and  a  land  of  poverty  into  a  mighty  empire.  ' 


ROME  137 

of  the  commonwealth ;  Caesar,  Pompey,  and  Augustus. 
No  age  has  failed  to  produce  its  own  brood  of  heroes,  every 
variety  of  man  doing  all  kinds  of  service,  but  all  in  the 
same  spirit  and  all  for  the  same  city. 

The  shield  of  Achilles  in  the  Iliad  is,  like  the  Iliad  itself, 
a  picture  of  life,  of  human  activity,  Greek  no  doubt,  but 
hardly  Greek  in  any  exclusive  or  self-conscious  way.  But 
the  shield  of  Aeneas  serves  a  different  purpose.  Its  pictures 
are  not  ornament ;  they  are  to  be  prophecy,  inspiration, 
history.  The  matter  of  this  shield  answers  in  like  manner 
to  the  poem — both  tell  of  Rome,  of  Roman  life  and  Roman 
men — 

res  Italas  Romanorumque  triumphos  (viii.  626). 

Here  we  have  more  colour  and  action  than  in  the  other 
passage  with  its  silent  procession  of  the  unborn.  We  see 
the  mother-wolf  with  the  Roman  twins,  proper  founders  for 
their  race,  inipavidi;  the  rape  of  the  Sabine  women  and  the 
peace  they  made  between  husbands  and  parents ;  Porsenna, 
baffled  and  angered  by  the  boldness  of  a  Codes  and  a 
Cloelia  ;  the  Capitol  saved  by  Manlius  and  the  geese ;  the 
punishment  of  Catiline  among  the  dead ;  Cato  on  the 
throne  of  Rhadamanthus ;  and  finally  the  last  great  battle 
of  Rome  against  the  East  at  Actium,  the  marshalling  of 
Augustus  and  his  Italians  against  Antony  and  his  motley 
barbarian  hordes,  of  the  gods  of  Rome  and  Italy  against 
dog-faced  Anubis  and  the  monsters  of  the  East,  and  the 
victory  of  right  over  wrong,  of  the  Roman  over  the  Oriental 
spirit.  These  are  the  pictures  upon  the  shield — pictures  of 
joy  and  hope — 

rerumque  ignarus  imagine  gaudet  (viii.  730). 

Critics  have  objected  to  the  line,  which  ends  the  passage,  as 
being  something  more  like  an  epigram  than  one  would 
expect  of  Virgil,  yet,  if  we  have  caught  the  spirit  of  the 
poet,  we  can  see  how  alien  the  suggestion  of  an  epigram 
really  is.  The  hero,  bearing  the  shield  pictured  with  the 
destinies  of  his  race,  symbolizes  what  he  is  in  sober  earnest. 
The  pictures  he  carries  are  emblems  of  the  destinies  which 


138  VIRGIL 

he  also  carries — his  race  and  its  future  are  really  as  well  as 
symbolically  laid  upon  him,  as  he  goes 

attollens  humero  famamque  et  fata  nepotum  ^  (viii.  731). 

The  poet,  says  Mr  Myers,  one  of  his  most  sympathetic 
critics,  "was  summing  up  in  those  lines  like  bars  of  gold  the 
hero-roll  of  the  Eternal  City,  conferring  with  every  word 
an  immortality,  and,  like  his  own  Aeneas,  bearing  on  his 
shoulders  the  fortune  and  the  fame  of  Rome."  ^ 

But  there  is  more  than  a  continuity  of  ritual  and  a  recur- 
rence of  heroism.  Through  all  these  centuries  there  runs 
a  continuity  of  character  clearly  to  be  traced. 

In  his  interesting  study  of  Aeolus  in  Homer  and  in  Virgil 
Sainte-Beuve  remarks  the  wide  difference  between  the 
Homeric  god,  "  a  good  enough  fellow,  a  genuine  patriarch 
among  his  family,  given  over  on  his  island  to  enjoyment,  to 
mirth  and  good  cheer,"  and  the  Virgilian  Aeolus,  "  this 
subaltern  of  a  god,  sombre,  uninquisitive,  a  little  bored  upon 
his  rock."  "  The  rude  Roman  discipline,"  he  continues,  "  has 
passed  over  the  brow  of  Virgil's  Aeolus ;  he  is  one  of  those 
chiefs  who,  as  was  said  of  Burrus,  could  have  grown  old  in 
the  obscure  honours  of  some  legion.  There  is  in  him  some- 
thing of  the  centurion,  or  the  military  tribune,  ennobled, 
deified."  ^ 

"  II  y  a  en  lui  du  centurion."  It  is  exactly  this  that  marks 
the  great  difference  between  Greek  and  Roman  character, 
between  the  men  and  gods  of  Homer  and  the  men  and  gods 
of  Virgil.  Greek  history  abounds  in  men  who  leave  upon 
the  mind  a  vivid  impression  of  character,  good  or  bad,  but 
individual  ;  while  in  Roman  history  we  instinctively  think 
first  of  the  state,  and  find  as  a  rule  only  a  very  much 
modified  individuality  in  the  citizens.  The  Greek's  gift  of 
looking  the  world  and  nature,  as  it  were,  between  the  eyes 

^  "  He  joys  in  the  portraiture  of  the  story  he  knows  not,  as  he  lifts  upon  his 
shoulder  the  fame  and  the  fates  of  his  children." 

*  Essays  Classical,  p.  143. 

3  Etude  stir  Virgile,  p.  204  ;  De  la  Ville  de  Mirmont's  objection  that  the 
"centurion"  is  very  ready  to  forget  his  military  allegiance  under  the  blandish- 
ments of  Juno  maybe  dismissed.  Fimbria  and  Galba  could  give  us  plenty  of 
parallels. 


ROME  139 

for  himself  contributed  at  once  to  the  political  impotence 
and  the  intellectual  and  artistic  sovereignty  of  his  race.  The 
Roman  had  less  imagination  ;  he  was  more  content  to 
take  orders  from  a  magistrate  or  an  officer  and  to  carry 
them  out  without  any  special  reference  to  first  principles. 
He  is  above  all  things  par  negotio  neque  stipra^ — a  type  of 
character,  no  doubt  eminently  useful,  but  not  supremely 
interesting. 

This  national  character  asserts  itself  in  the  Aeneid.  Aeolus 
is  something  of  a  centurion.  When  Juno  bribes  him  with 
a  wife,  she  thinks  of  lawful  Roman  wedlock — 

connubio  iungam  stabili  propriamque  dicabo  2  {A.  i.  73). 

"  Elle  sera  comme  une  matrone  romaine,  une  materfamilias 
du  bon  temps,"  for  Pronuba  Juno  promises  offspring  too. 
When  Jupiter  rises  from  his  golden  throne  the  gods  escort 
him  home  as  if  he  were  a  Roman  magistrate — 

caelicolae  medium  quern  ad  limina  ducunt  {^A.  x.  117).^ 

The  council  of  Jupiter  is  not  like  that  of  Zeus.  "  Zeus,"  says 
Homer  "  bade  Themis  call  the  gods  to  assembly  from  the 
head  of  deeply-delled  Olympus  ;  and  she  went  hither  and 
thither,  and  bade  them  come  to  the  house  of  Zeus.  No  river 
was  not  there,  save  only  Ocean,  no  nymph  of  the  pleasant 
groves,  or  the  river  fountains,  or  the  meadow  leas  ;  they 
came  to  the  house  of  cloud-compelling  Zeus  "  {Iliad,  xx. 
4-10  ;  Purves).  In  fact  the  Homeric  gods  gather  in  a  general 
assembly,  much  like  the  Homeric  soldiers  in  the  second 
Iliad.  Virgil  only  admits  the  great  gods  ;  he  does  not  let 
them  drink  before  deliberating,  and  he  makes  them  sit,  grave 
as  senators  of  the  better  sort  in  the  senate-house.* 

1  "  Equal  to  his  task  and  not  above  it." 

*  "  I  will  unite  her  to  thee  in  lasting  wedlock,  and  consecrate  her  thine  own  " 
(Conington). 

'  "The  heavenly  people  surround  and  escort  him  to  the  doorway."  Cf.  Ovid, 
Epp.  ex  Ponto,  vi.  4.  41  ttide  domum  repetes  toto  comiiattte  senalu,  cited  by 
Conington. 

*  See  Boissier,  La  Religion  romaine,  i.  254.  The  Roman  dignity  of  the  Virgilian 
Jupiter  may  be  brought  out  by  a  few  lines  from  Ovid,  Met.  ii.  847  : 

sceptri  gravitate  relict  a 
i lie  pater  rector  que  deum,  cui  dcxta  trisulcis 


I40  VIRGIL 

The  same  Roman  character  marks  Aeneas'  men,  and 
indeed  in  such  a  degree  as  to  impair  to  some  extent  the 
vigour  of  the  poem.  Not  one  of  them  has  any  clearly  in- 
dividual character,  any  "  physiognomy,"  to  use  Sainte-Beuve's 
word  for  it.  Achates  of  course  is yf^f/zj- ;  he  carries  Aeneas' 
bow,  and  is  always  ready  and  at  hand  ;  he  is  the  first  to  sight 
Italy  and  to  hail  it ;  but  we  do  not  know  him.  Gyas  and 
Serestus  are  each  of  them  fortis.  Gyas,  it  is  true,  on  one 
occasion  forgets  himself  {oblitus  decoris  sui — what  a  rebuke  is 
in  the  phrase !)  and  throws  his  steersman  overboard,  but  such 
outbreaks  of  individuality  are  rare.  Ilioneus  twice  makes 
diplomatic  speeches,  grave,  to  the  point,  and  dignified,  as 
became  a  Roman  ambassador,  but  he  does  not  let  himself  go. 
The  reason  for  all  this  can  hardly  be  accident.  The  poet 
looks  at  these  men  much  as  a  Roman  general  would  have, 
and  he  conceives  that  Aeneas  did  the  same.  Watchful  of 
their  general  interests,  careful,  kindly,  Aeneas  will  not 
concern  himself  too  closely  with  them  as  individuals,  he 
thinks  of  them  as  a  body.  If  Aeolus  is  a  centurion,  Aeneas 
is  an  imperator.  He  says  "to  this  man,  Go,  and  he  goeth ; 
and  to  another.  Come,  and  he  cometh"  ;  and  when  the  brave 
Serestus  has  loyally  done  what  he  is  told  to  do,  there  is  no 
more  to  be  said  about  him.  We  might  have  preferred  that 
realization  of  the  last  and  least  individual  upon  the  scene, 
which  we  have  in  Homer,  and  above  all  in  Shakespeare;  but 
yet,  if  we  had  been  given  it  by  the  poet,  it  might  after  all  have 
made  the  general  picture  less  Roman.  The  Roman  Empire 
was  made  by  men  of  little  individual  "  physiognomy,"  if  men 
of  a  wonderfully  uniform  practical  capacity  ;  by  "  average 
men,"  but  men  of  an  unexampled  high  average,  every  one  of 
them  gifted  by  nature  with  the  instinct  to  rule  and  to  be 
ruled.  Fessi  rerum  they  work  on  undaunted.^  Hence 
Aeneas'  men — quiet,  patient,  reliable,  Roman  as  they  are — 
are  hardly  so  interesting  as  his  enemies. 

ignibtis  artnata  est,  gut  nutu  concutit  orbem, 
induittir  faciem  tauri  mixtusqiie  iuvencis 
mugit  et  in  teneris  formostis  obanibulat  herbis. 

A  later  Greek  poet,  Nonnus,  seizes  this  occasion  to  make  Zeus  say  del8i.a 
HvdoTOKov  TrXeov  'EXXdSa  {Dionysiaca,  i.  385). 

^  A.  i.  178. 


ROME  141 


III 

Virgil,  in  Aeneas  and  his  men,  shows  us  what  he  holds  to 
be  the  ideal  Roman  temper.  These  are  the  people  whom  he 
sends  to  Latium  to  fuse  with  Latin  and  Italian,  to  conquer 
and  to  rule  the  world,  and  it  is  on  this  destiny  of  theirs  that 
the  epic  turns,^  He  has  discarded  the  mock-epic  motive  he 
played  with  in  the  first  Georgic — 

Laomedonteae  luimus  periuria  Troiae  ^  {G.  \.  502). 

It  is  true  that  as  a  sort  of  after-thought  (a  tribute  to  the 
legends  of  Troy)  he  credits  Juno  with  some  resentment  born 
of  slighted  beauty — spretae  inuiria  forniae  \  but  he  draws  her 
on  a  large  scale,  as  a  nobler  Livy  might  have  drawn  Hannibal. 
Juno  means  empire.  She  too  has  something  of  the  Roman 
in  her,  for,  whatever  her  original  motive,  she  plays  a  great 
game  for  a  great  stake,  involving  world-wide  issues.  Fate 
has  decreed  that  one  people  shall  rule  the  world  ;  she  prefers 
another,  and  she  tries  conclusions  with  Fate.  Aeneas  as  the 
instrument  of  Fate  suffers.  Hence  Dr  Henry  was  less  awake 
than  he  thought  when,  "just  as  he  went  to  sleep  and  began 

^  In  a  tract,  which  is  by  no  means  as  good  as  its  title,  Plutarch  discusses 
the  Roman  Empire  {De  Fortuna  Romanoriini).  He  recognizes  its  greatness,  and 
calls  Rome,  in  language  curiously  anticipatory  of  Claudian,  ■ko.cjlv  avOpdiirois 
e<XTlav  lepdv,  us  d\r]du!S,  Kal  dvTjffidupav,  /cat  ireifffia.  fibviixov  koI  (TTOixf^ov  didiov, 
i>TO(pepoix€vois  Tois  wpdyixacnv  ayKvprj^oXiov  crdXov  Kal  ir\dvT)s  (316  F) — his 
metaphors,  he  says,  are  borrowed  from  Democritus.  Just  as  the  elements 
were  at  war  till  the  KOff/xos  united  them,  so  Rome  united  the  world,  and  he 
raises  the  question  :  Does  she  owe  more  to  'Aperrj  or  to  Ti^x'?  ?  He  thinks 
she  owes  much  to  both,  but  his  tract  falls  away  into  a  discussion  of  the 
services  Chance  has  rendered  Rome,  e.g.  the  co-operation  of  Romulus'  wolf, 
and  Manlius'  geese,  and  the  occasional  quarrels  or  pre-occupations  of  Rome's 
enemies.  The  reader  is  disappointed  to  find  so  very  little  recognition  that 
Rome  owed  her  greatness  to  character.  Schlemm  calls  the  tract  "a  mere 
rhetorical  exercise,"  and  one  would  like  to  believe  him  for  Plutarch's  credit. 
Dr  Oakesmith  {Keli^07i  of  Plutarch,  p.  83),  however,  following  Wyttenbach, 
includes  Providence  as  well  as  Chance  under  Tux^?!  and  finds  little  in  the 
tract  that  clashes  with  Plutarch's  established  opinions.  See  also  Greard,  La 
morale  de  Plutarqjie,  p.  35  ;  he  holds  it  to  have  been  designed  for  a  Roman 
audience. 

1  <<  w^g  have  atoned  the  perjuries  of  Laomedon  and  his  Troy."  It  is  interesting 
to  note  this  passage  as  an  unconscious  hint  of  the  Aeneid  to  come,  as  it  is  to 
study  the  list  of  subjects  which  Milton  sketched  out  for  his  eventual  theme. 


142  VIRGIL 

to  forget  himself,"  he  parodied  Conington  in  the  graceful 
line, 

Juno's  vixen  and  not  fell.^ 

It  is  rather  on  quo  numine  laeso  that  the  stress  falls — on 
Juno's  divine  will  and  purpose  as  crossing  and  thwarting 
the  order  of  things  decreed  by  Fate. 

For  Fate  has  decreed  that  Aeneas  shall  found 

populum  late  regem  belloque  superbum  ^  {A.  i.  21). 

This  is  a  profoundly  true  and  forcible  description  of  the 
Roman  people.  If  Cineas  found  the  Senate  an  "assembly  of 
kings,"  outside  its  doors  he  might  have  found  a  sovereign 
people,  sovereign  as  no  other  ancient  people  ever  was.  The 
world  knew  Alexander  rex,  Ptolemaeus  rex,  but  here  was 
populus  rex?  That  very  want  of  physiognomy,  which 
marked  the  individual  Roman  character,  gave  force  and 
power  to  the  national  character.  The  private  citizen  was 
content,  was  glad,  to  be  fused  in  the  populus  Romanus. 
Roman  generals  might  lose  battles,  Roman  governors  might 
govern  ill,  and  Roman  judges  might  sell  justice  ;  yet  the 
nation  never  failed  to  carry  a  war  through  to  victory ;  the 
nation  ruled  the  world  better  than  it  had  ever  been  ruled 
before ;  the  nation  formed  a  body  of  laws  which  shaped  the 
character  of  European  institutions  and  differentiated,  once 
and  for  all.  Western  from  Oriental  ideas  of  law,  justice,  and 
government. 

For  this  people  Fate  "  appoints  neither  period  nor  boundary 
of  empire,  but  dominion  without  end  " — 

his  ego  nee  metas  rerum  nee  tempora  pono, 
imperium  sine  fine  dedi  ■*  {A.  i.  278). 

Fate,  Jupiter  continues,  ordains  them  to  be 

Romanes  rerum  dominos  gentemque  togatam  ^  {A,  i.  282). 

1  Aeneidea,  i.  p.  56. 

2  "  A  nation,  monarch  of  broad  realms  and  glorious  in  war"  (Conington). 

3  Cf.  C\c.  pro  Plancio,  4.  II  hjdus principis pop7ili  et  otnniiim  geiilium  domuii 
atque  vidoris. 

*  "To  them  I  set  neither  limit  of  time  nor  space  ;  empire  without  end  I  have 
given  them." 

*  "  Romans,  lords  of  the  world,  the  race  of  the  toga." 


ROME  143 

This  is  an  addition  to  what  we  have  heard.  The  sovereignty 
of  the  world  is  to  belong  to  the  collective  Roman  people 
{reruni  dominos),  but  the  people  is  one  whose  distinctive 
mark  is  the  garb  of  peace.^  A  nation  of  citizens,  unarmed, 
is  to  govern  the  world  in  peace,  and  the  very  object  of  its 
rule  is  peace.  For,  Jupiter  adds,  the  day  shall  come  when, 
under  Augustus'  sway,  "the  iron  ages  shall  soften  and  lay 
war  aside  ;  the  gates  of  war  shall  be  shut,"  and  the  war-fury 
shall  be  shackled,  a  helpless  prisoner. 

If  Jupiter's  prediction  is  not  enough,  we  have  the  crown- 
ing word  which  Anchises  speaks  in  the  lower  world  on  the 
duty  and  destiny  of  Rome — 

Excudent  alii  spirantia  mollius  aera 

(credo  equidem),  vivos  ducent  de  marmore  vultus, 

orabunt  causas  melius,  caelique  meatus 

describent  radio  et  surgentia  sidera  dicent : 

tu  regere  imperio  populos,  Romane,  memento 

(hae  tibi  erunt  artes)  pacisque  imponere  morem, 

parcere  subjectis  et  debellare  superbos  ^  (^A.  vi.  847-853). 

*  "Not  merely,"  says  Henry,  on  gentetn  togatam,  "the  Romans,  whose 
national  dress  is  the  toga,  commanding  the  world ;  but  the  Romans  in  their 
garb  of  peace,  the  ''toga,''  i.e.  in  their  civilian  character — a  nation  of  citizens — 
commanding  the  world."  Conington,  however,  finds  "no  need  to  seek  a  point 
in  any  antithesis  between  arma  and  toga. " 

-       Others  will  mould  their  bronzes  to  breathe  with  a  tenderer  grace, 
Draw,  I  doubt  not,  from  marble  a  vivid  life  to  the  face, 
Plead  at  the  bar  more  deftly,  with  sapient  wands  of  the  wise, 
Trace  heaven's  courses  and  changes,  predict  us  stars  to  arise. 
Thine,  O  Roman,  remember  to  rule  over  every  race  ! 
These  be  thine  arts,  thy  glories,  the  ways  of  peace  to  proclaim, 
Mercy  to  show  to  the  fallen,  the  proud  with  battle  to  tame.     (Bowen.) 
Cf.  the  statement  of  Augustus  on  the  Monument  of  Ancyra  (3),  Vidor  omnibus 
civibus  snperstitibus  peperci.     Externas  gentes,  qiUbus  tuto  ignosci  potuit,  con- 
servare  gitam  excidere  tnalui.     Also  Horace,  Carmen  Seculare  (b.c.  17,  two  years 
after  Virgil's  death),  1.  50,  Clarus  Anchisae  Venerisque  sanguis  .  .  .  be//ante prior, 
iacentetn   lenis   in   hostem.      We   may   contrast    the   account   of  Persia,    which 
Aeschylus  ironically  put  into  the  mouth  of  a  Persian,  on  the  eve  of  the  arrival 
of  news  of  Salamis  (/'«?.fa^,  loi  f.) — 

deodev  yap  /card  /j-oTp'  iKp6.T7](T€v  to  iraXaiov,  iiricTKrj^{/e  5i  Tiepcrais 
iroXinovs  irvpyooaiKTOvs 

diiirfiv  liririoxo-pfiCLS  re  kKovovs,  woKewv  t  dyaffrdcreis. 
The  last  clause  explains  why  the  Persian  Empire   failed   to   leave  any  such 
impression  as  Rome's — there  was  no  pacis  imponere  morem. 


144  VIRGIL 

Pads  imponere  morem^  says  Virgil,  and  the  best  com- 
mentary which  can  be  quoted  on  the  phrase  is  a  passage  of 
Claudian,  written  four  centuries  later — 

Rome,  Rome  alone  has  found  the  spell  to  charm 
The  tribes  that  bowed  beneath  her  conquering  arm, 
Has  given  one  name  to  the  whole  human  race, 
And  clasped  and  sheltered  them  in  fond  embrace; 
Mother,  not  mistress,  called  her  foe  her  son, 
And  by  soft  ties  made  distant  countries  one. 
This  to  her  peaceful  sceptre  all  men  owe. 
That  through  the  nations,  wheresoe'er  we  go, 
Strangers,  we  find  a  fatherland  ;  our  home 
We  change  at  will.     We  count  it  sport  to  roam 
To  distant  Thule,  or  with  sails  unfurled 
Seek  the  most  drear  recesses  of  the  world  ; 
That  we  may  tread  Rhone's  or  Orontes'  shore 
That  we  are  all  one  nation  evermore.^ 

Claudian' s  tone  is  not  exactly  the  same  as  Virgil's,  but 
his  thought  is  inspired  by  Virgil's  thought.  He  sees  very 
much  the  same  empire  that  Virgil  saw,  but  he  sees  it  after 
four  hundred  years  of  the  rule  of  that  Roman  spirit 
which  Virgil  portrays  in  the  Aeneid.  His  story  is  the  fulfil- 
ment  of  Virgil's  prophecy,  and  his  central  thought  is  the 

^  Claudian,  Cons.  Stil.  iii.  150.     The  rendering  is  Dr  Hodgkin's — 
Haec  est  in  gre/nium  victos  quae  sola  recepit 
Jnimanuinque  gemis  co7nmuni  nomine  fovit 
main's  no7i  doniinae  ritu :  civesque  vocavit 
quos  domuit,  7iexuque  pio  longinqua  revinxit. 
Hiiius  pacijicis  debeimis  nioribiis  oinnes, 
quod  veluti  patriis  regionibus  utiticr  hospes, 
quod  sedon  nmtare  licet,  quod  cernere  Thulen 
lusus  et  horrendos  quondam  penetrare  recessus, 
quod  bibinius passim  Rhodanum  potamus  Oi'ontem, 
quod  cuncti  gens  una  sumus.     Nee  terminus  unquam 
Roma7iae  dicio7iis  e7~it.     Na77i  cetera  reg7ia 
luxuries  vitiis  odiisque  supo-bia  vertit. 

It  is  also  interesting  to  find  the  same  sort  of  thought  in  Epictetus,  who  pro- 
bably like  all  the  Greeks  ignored  Virgil  and  Latin  literature  : — bpare  yap  6ti 
dprjVT^v  fj.eydXrii'  0  Kalaap  7)fxlv  SoKel  irapexeiv,  6ti  ovk  elcrlv  ovk€tl  iroXefioi,  ovoi 
fj.dxo-1-,  odS^  \ToaT7jpia  /j.eyd\a,  ov5^  weipaTLKa'  dW  ^^ecrri  irdaij  ibpa  odeveiv,  ttXhv 
dirb  dvaroXuv  iiri  dvafids  {D.  III.  xiii.). 


ROME  145 

same.  His  pacifui  mores  represents  very  closely  Virgil's 
pads  imponere  morcDi.  The  intervening  ages  had  not  been 
so  golden  as  Virgil  had  hoped,  at  least  not  so  glittering,  but 
they  were  a  period  of  the  diffusion  of  the  old  world's  gains 
and  of  a  deepening  and  quickening  of  the  human  spirit. 
If  the  fabric  of  the  Roman  state  did  not  wear  so  well  as 
Virgil  had  predicted,  the  mind  of  mankind  had  caught  the 
mood  and  temper  of  the  poet,  and  had  learnt  to  find  in  a 
teaching  which  he  never  knew  the  satisfaction  of  the  yearn- 
ings which  he  had  uttered  for  ever  in  his  poetry.  The 
spiritual  development  of  the  Western  world  under  the  Empire 
is  quite  in  consonance  with  Virgil's  prophecy  and  with  his 
own  feelings.  The  connexion  between  this  spiritual  growth 
and  the  pacific  rule  of  Rome  is  brought  out  and  emphasized 
by  Claudian's  contemporary,  Prudentius,  who  sees  still  deeper 
into  the  significance  of  Rome.^ 

Rome's  purpose  was  not  mere  conquest.  Augustus  was 
not  the  only  great  conqueror  of  his  day.  Virgil  shows  us 
Antony 

victor  ab  Aurorae  populis  et  litore  rubro  ^  {A,  viii.  686), 

*  Prudentius,  contra  Synimachum,  ii.  586  ff.  : 

Discordes  Unguis  populos  et  dissona  cultu 
regna  volens  sociare  Deus,  siibiunper  uni 
irnperto,  qiiidqiiid tractabile  moribus  esset, 
concordique  iiigo  retinactila  molliaferre 
constiticit,  quo  corda  hominum  coniuncta  teneret 
relligionis  amor :  nee  enimfit  copula  Christo 
digna  nisi  implicitas  societ  mens  tinica gentes  .  .  . 
Miscebat  Bellona  furens  niortalia  cuncia 
armahatqtie  feras  in  vulnera  mutua  dextras. 
Hanc  frenaturus  rabiem  Deus  iindique  gentes 
inclinare  caput  docuit  sub  legibus  isdefn 
Rovianosque  oinnes  fieri  .   .   . 
lus  fecit  conununc  pares  et  nomine  eodcvi 
nexuit  et  domitos  fraterna  in  vincla  redegit  .   .   . 
Hoc  actum  est  tantis  successibus  atque  triumphis 
Romani  imperii ;  Christo  iam  tunc  venienti, 
crede,  parata  via  est,  quam  dudum  publica  nostras 
pads  amicitia  struxit  moderamine  Romae  .   .   . 
Jam  mundus  tc,  Christe,  capit,  quern  congrege  nexu 
pax  et  Roma  tenenl. 
*  "  Conqueror  from  the  races  of  the  East  and  the  Red  Sea." 


146  VIRGIL 

but  Antony  has  abandoned  the  ideals  of  Rome.  Self-indulg- 
ence and  indifference  to  his  country's  claim  have  denationalized 
him,  and  he  comes  to  battle  with  Cleopatra  at  his  side  and 
under  the  tutelage  of  dog-headed  Anubis  and  the  portentous 
gods  of  the  East.  Against  him  are  "  the  fathers  and  the 
people,  the  Penates  and  the  Great  Gods,"  and  the  world 
passes  from  his  grasp  to  one  who  will  rule  it  with  more 
loyalty  to  the  ideas  and  to  the  spirit  of  his  race.^ 

Sainte-Beuve,  in  comparing  the  ArgonaiUica  of  ApoUonius 
with  the  Aeneid,  allows  it  every  claim  it  can  lay  to  learning, 
elegance,  and  ingenuity,  but,  he  concludes,  it  was  the  epic  of 
no  nation — "il  ne  fit  battre  aucun  coeur."  There,  in  that 
word,  lies  the  supremacy  of  the  Aeneid.  It  is  a  poem  which 
appealed  to  a  great  people  and  to  every  citizen,  and  which 
still,  though  that  people  has  ceased  to  be,  "makes  the  heart 
beat."  2 

^  The  battle  of  Actium,  A.  viii.  675-713. 

*  I  am  glad  to  find  a  similar  view  held  by  Mr  Warde  Fowler.  See  h\s  Religious 
Experience  of  the  Roman  People  (191 1)  pp.  409,  410.  He  finds  the  mission  of 
Rome  in  the  world  recurrent,  like  the  subject  of  a  fugue,  through  the  whole 
poem.  "There  are  drawbacks,"  he  owns — e.g.  the  intervention  of  the  gods  after 
the  Homeric  manner,  and  "the  seeming  want  of  warm  human  blood  in  the  hero" 
— "  but  he  who  keeps  the  great  theme  ever  in  mind,  watching  for  it  as  he  reads, 
as  one  watches  for  the  new  entry  of  a  great  fugue -subject,  will  never  fail  to 
see  in  the  Aeneid  one  of  the  noblest  efforts  of  human  art — to  understand  what 
makes  it  the  world's  second  great  epic." 


CHAPTER  VII 
THE  LAND  AND  THE  NATION —3.  AUGUSTUS 

Nam  genus  htimainait,  dcfessuni  vi  colerc  acz'om, 

ex  inimicitiis  languebat ;  qiiojnagis  ipsttin 

sponte  sua  cccidit  sub  leges  artaquc  iura. — LuCRETIUS,  v.  1 145. 

**  For  myself,"  Goethe  continued,  "  I  have  always  been  a  royalist." 

EcKERMANN,  Conversations  with  Goethe^  Feb.  25,  1824. 

PROBABLY  there  is  nothing  that  startles  the  modern 
reader  of  Horace  and  Virgil  so  much  as  the  deification 
of  the  Emperor  Augustus.  To  us  he  hardly  seems  a 
poetical,  still  less  a  divine,  figure.^  A  shrewd  and  successful 
adventurer,  without  ideas  of  his  own,  he  lived  by  assimilating 
the  ideas  of  his  uncle  and  adoptive  father,  while  he  cautiously 
discarded,  either  from  inability  to  grasp  them  or  from  a  feeling 
that  they  would  militate  against  his  success,  some  of  those 
conceptions  and  thoughts  of  Julius  which  most  appeal  to  us 
to-day.  He  is  essentially  the  "  middleman  "  who  comes  in 
the  train  of  genius  to  break  up,  to  distribute,  and  to  utilize 
those  gains,  which  genius  can  indicate  but  cannot  gather 
either  for  itself  or  for  the  world.  Like  other  political  and 
intellectual  middlemen,  he  was  eminently  successful  in  life, 
and  owed  his  success  at  once  to  his  practical  adroitness  and 
his  intellectual  inferiority.  He  stood  near  enough  to  Julius 
to  understand  his  political  plans,  while  he  stood  nearer  than 
Julius  did  to  the  people  he  had  to  rule,  nearer  in  the  limita- 
tion of  his  outlook,  in  his  slighter  power  of  handling  ideas, 
and  in  the  resulting  ability  to  follow  the  workings  of  the 
average  Italian  mind.  Genius  is  apt  to  see  too  far,  and 
range  too  high,  and  look  reality  too  clearly  in  the  face,  to 
sympathize  with  the  pedestrian  limitations  of  its  neighbours  ; 

^  A  friendly  critic  has  held  that  this  paragraph  looks  too  like  a  final  judgement, 
but  it  was  definitely  intended  to  represent  one  side  of  the  case  ;  the  other  side,  it 
was  hoped,  was  presented  strongly  enough  in  the  rest  of  the  chapter. 

147 


148  VIRGIL 

and  Julius  met  his  death  through  his  mistake  in  supposing 
that  the  men  about  him  were  as  much  moved  as  he  by  the 
logic  of  reaHties  and  as  little  satisfied  with  the  surfaces  of 
things.^  Augustus,  on  the  other  hand,  had  a  clearer  notion 
of  the  ways  of  the  common  man  and  a  more  kindly  feeling  for 
his  prejudices.  He  was  intensely  practical,  he  had  a  wonder- 
ful faculty  for  learning  from  the  mistakes  of  others  and  for 
avoiding  the  repetition  of  his  own,  but  he  hardly  seems  to  us 
the  man  to  quicken  a  poet's  imagination.  Dexterity, 
calculation,  coolness  are  excellent  qualities  for  a  business 
man,  but  they  hardly  suggest  inspiration. 

Yet  Virgil  and  Horace  write  of  Augustus  with  an  enthu- 
siasm which,  if  not  entirely  real,  is  in  the  main  genuine 
enough.  When  the  utterances  of  both  are  weighed,  it  will 
be  found  perhaps  that  Horace  has  said  more  and  meant  less 
than  Virgil.  It  is  Horace  who  speaks  of  Augustus  as  a 
possible  incarnation  of  Mercury  or  some  other  god,^  who 
pictures  him  attaining  godhead  {caelum)  by  the  methods  of 
Bacchus,  Pollux,  and  Hercules,  and  "reclining  among  them 
to  drink  the  nectar  with  purple  lips  "  ;  ^  who  goes  further  still 
and  proclaims  that  he  shall  be  a  god  while  yet  he  lives.^ 
But  the  poet  of  the  odes  to  Lalage  and  Lydia  may  fairly 
ask  not  to  be  taken  too  seriously,  and  we  find  that  in  the 
more  prosaic  affairs  of  life  Horace  held  aloof  from  the 
Emperor  ;  he  refused  to  become  his  private  secretary,  de- 
clined to  write  an  epic  for  him,  and  abstained  from  asking 
favours,  till  the  Emperor  wrote  and  accused  him  of  despising 
his  friendship,  and  asked  if  the  poet  were  afraid  posterity 
would  count  it  against  him  to  have  been  the  intimate  of 
Augustus.^ 

But  Horace  is  not  alone  in  speaking  of  Augustus  as  a  god. 
Does  not  Tityrus  say 

deus  nobis  haec  otia  fecit?  ^  {E.  i.  6). 

1  See  Suetonius, //<//«^  cc.  76,  77,  for  evidence  on  this  point. 

2  Odes,  i.  2.  41.  *  Odes,  iii.  3.  (^-xz purpurea  libit  ore  nectar, 
*  Odes,  iii.  5.  2  praesens  diviis  habebitur  Augustus. 

^  The  letters  are  extant  in  tlie  short  life  of  Horace  by  Suetonius,  and  well 
deserve  attention. 

"  It  was  a  god  that  gave  us  this  peace." 


AUGUSTUS  149 

Is  there  not  at  the  beginning  of  the  first  Georgia  an  elaborate 
discussion  of  the  Emperor's  godhead  ?  Is  not  the  Aeneid  full 
of  Augustus?  For  Virgil  poetry  is  a  higher,  a  more  serious, 
thing — aTTovSaioTepov — than  for  Horace.  What  then  does  he 
mean  by  this  repeated  adoration  of  the  ruler  ?  How  should 
a  man  of  peace  glorify  the  author  of  proscription  and  con- 
fiscation ?  How  should  the  pupil  of  Siro  and  Lucretius 
make  a  god  of  this  man,  who  was  assuredly  no  Epicurus? 
How  should  the  poet  of  Dido  and  Evander  and  Pallas  find 
a  place  in  such  a  company  for  a  figure  so  essentially 
prosaic  ? 

To  answer  these  questions  we  must  understand  the  rela- 
tions of  the  poet  and  the  Emperor.  The  base  suggestion 
which  makes  of  Virgil  a  sort  of  glorified  Martial,  and  finds 
the  explanation  of  everything  in  a  farm  near  Mantua  and  a 
house  at  Naples,  may  be  at  once  dismissed.  Great  poetry 
does  not  spring  from  such  motives.  Nor  can  we  say  at  once 
that  Virgil  was  influenced  merely  by  friendly  or  patriotic 
considerations.  He  was  indebted  to  Augustus,  he  was  his 
friend,  and  he  admired  him  as  a  statesman ;  and  in  view  of 
all  that  Augustus  was  to  the  poet  personally,  and  of  all  that 
he  had  done  for  their  country,  we  cannot  blame  Virgil  either 
for  his  friendship  or  his  admiration.  To  connect  his  great 
work  with  such  a  friend's  name  would  surely  be  a  venial 
offence,  if  an  offence  at  all.  But  Virgil  has  done  more  than 
this,  for,  whether  it  appear  to  us  legitimate  or  not,  he  has 
tried  to  bring  Augustus  into  vital  relation  with  the  whole  of 
the  Aefteid,  and  to  make  the  whole  poem  turn,  or  at  least 
seem  to  turn,  upon  the  destiny  of  Augustus.  Is  it  a  triumph 
of  the  friend  over  the  poet  ?  That  is  a  dangerous  and 
doubtful  suggestion  to  make  about  a  great  poet,  as  it  involves 
misconception  of  a  poet's  habits  of  mind.  The  poet  will 
generally  be  found  to  think  first  of  truth  and  poetry,  and, 
where  these  are  concerned,'  to  have  a  singular  faculty  of  clear 
vision.  Whatever  his  relations  with  philosophy,  whatever 
the  coincidence  or  difference  of  philosophic  and  poetic  truth, 
the  poet  will  always  agree  with  the  philosopher  that  "  it  is 
the  best  course,  and  indeed  necessary,  at  least  where  truth  is 
at  stake,  to  sacrifice  even  what  is  near  and  dear  to  us ;  for, 


ISO  VIRGIL 

where  both  are  dear  to  us,  it  is  a  sacred  duty  to  prefer  truth."  ^ 
Is  there  then  any  poetic  truth  in  Virgil's  presentment  of 
Augustus? 

It  will  perhaps  be  simplest  to  try  to  obtain  some  clear 
idea  of  what  Augustus  did  and  was  ;  and  then  to  study  the 
impression  he  made  upon  the  poet  ;  and,  thus  prepared,  to 
consider  how  the  poet  embodies  his  impression  in  his  poetry. 


"  Ce  trop  habile  homme,  par  peur  des  poignards,  n'organisa 
que  le  viager,  et  ne  consacra  que  le  mensonge." 

In  this  striking  and  epigrammatic  form  M.  Goumy  has 
summed  up  a  great  deal  of  criticism  upon  the  imperial 
system  which  Augustus  devised  and  handed  down  to  his 
successor.^  To  attempt  to  reconcile  such  a  judgement  with 
"  poetic  truth  "  may  seem  like  propounding  a  paradox,  par- 
ticularly when  it  must  be  owned  at  the  outset  that  M.  Goumy 
in  his  way  is  right.  But  we  have  to  distinguish  between  what 
Augustus  did  and  what  he  wished  the  Roman  world  to  think. 
What  he  did  was  to  carry  into  effect  the  ideas  of  Julius;  but 
he  wished  his  fellow  countrymen  to  suppose  that  he  was 
doing  the  opposite. 

Now  the  very  essence  of  the  ideas  of  Julius  was  the  recog- 
nition of  the  actual.  It  is  hardly  fanciful  to  take  his  correc- 
tion of  the  Calendar  as  typical  of  all  he  did  in  the  re- 
organization of  the  government  at  large.  "  When  he  turned 
to  set  the  republic  in  order,"  says  Suetonius,  "  he  put  the 
Calendar  right,  which  had  been  brought,  by  the  recklessness 
of  the  pontifices  in  intercalation,  to  such  confusion,  that  the 
harvest   festival    was    not   in    summer,   nor   the    vintage    in 

■*  Aristotle,  Ethics,  i.  4.  6,  p.  1096  a  :  jBeXnov  elvai  Kal  5eiv  iTrl  cniiTtipiq.  ye  rrjs 
dXriOeias  Kal  tA  o'iKe'ia  avaipeiv,  fiWws  re  Kal  cpCKocrbcpov's  ovras'  ajxtpoiv  yap  ovToiv 
(piKoLV  oaiop  irpoTifiav  ttjv  oK-qdeiav. 

*  M.  Henri  Rochefort  in  the  days  of  the  Dreyfus  troubles  put  the  same  thought 
in  a  maxim  of  wider  range  : — "  Everyone  knows,  and  the  Ministers  best  of  all,  that 
to  govern  is  to  lie  {gouveyncr  c'est  nienfir)."  See  F.  C.  Conybeare,  The  Dreyfits 
Case,  p.  156.  It  is  a  brilliant  phrase  and  many  people,  in  ancient  times  and 
modern,  have  believed  it — practical  politicians  and  their  critics — yes,  and  thinkers 
like  Euripides  and  Tolstoi  have  said  it  in  bitterness  of  heart.     It  deserves  study. 


AUGUSTUS  151 

autumn.  He  adjusted  the  year  to  the  course  of  the  sun."  ^ 
There  at  least  Julius  was  in  toucli  with  the  ultimate  fact. 
It  is  clear  throughout  everything  he  does  that  his  intention 
is  to  grasp  the  real  state  of  the  case,  and  then,  in  full  view 
of  everything  material,  to  plan  real  provision  for  real  need. 
This  is  the  statesman's  temper.  It  is  recognizable  in  Julius 
from  the  beginning ;  he  of  all  men  took  the  truest  measure 
of  Pompey  from  the  first.  But  it  was  in  Gaul  that  he  had 
his  first  chance  of  exercising  and  developing  his  faculty. 
There  he  had  a  great  country  to  deal  with,  large  problems 
to  face,  and  freedom  in  working  them  out.  When  he  found 
himself  master  of  the  Roman  world,  he  worked  on  in  the 
same  way.     What  were  the  real  facts,  the  real  requirements  .■'  ^ 

The  first  and  most  clamant  need  of  the  Roman  world  was 
government.  The  Roman  constitution  had  not  been  con- 
trived for  the  inclusion  of  a  subject  empire.  As  province 
after  province  was  added,  one  expedient  and  another  were 
devised  to  meet  each  case  as  it  came  ;  but  wise  and  good  as 
many  of  these  expedients  might  be,  there  was  an  air  of 
makeshift  about  the  whole.  By  Caesar's  day  it  was  plain 
that  the  sovereign  people  would  not  take  the  thought  and 
trouble  necessary  for  the  working  of  these  expedients,  while 
the  upper  classes  looked  upon  the  provinces  chiefly  as  sources 
of  private  revenue  for  senatorial  governors  and  for  the 
leaders  of  the  financial  world,  and  hence  as  mere  counters 
in  the  game  of  politics. 

In  short,  there  was  no  serious  government  any  longer, 
nothing  but  improvisation.  There  was  no  continuity  of 
policy  for  the  province  ;  there  were  no  general  principles 
of  policy  for  the  empire.  The  empire  was  not  looked  at 
as  a  whole;  it  was  not  studied  with  intelligence;  even 
considered  as  a  collection  of  estates  it  was  badly  managed. 
Yet  it  made  itself  felt  in  Rome,  and  now  and  then  men 
recognized  that  the  peculiar  problems  it  presented  required 
special  and  intelligent  treatment.     For  instance,  in  6"]  B.C. 

^  Suetonius,  Julius,  40.  May  we  quote  Virgil  in  a  new  connexion  :  Soleni 
quis  di cere  f ahum  audeat  (C  i.  463)  ? 

*  Compare  Carlyle,  French  RevohitioJt  vol.  iii.  bk.  3,  ch.  i  :  "  Whatsoever  man 
or  men  can  best  interpret  the  inward  tendencies  it  [the  Movement]  has,  and  give 
them  voice  and  activity,  will  obtain  the  lead  of  it." 


152  VIRGIL 

piracy  had  reached  such  dimensions,  that  it  was  seen  to  be  an 
imperial  question,  not  to  be  managed  by  partial  operations 
in  the  various  provinces.  It  was  clear  that  the  thing 
needed  was  a  central  and  comprehensive  plan,  steadily 
directed  and  controlled  by  an  organizing  mind,  which  must 
be  in  possession  of  all  the  facts  to  be  faced,  and  able  to  set 
in  motion  forces  adequate  for  the  work  to  be  done.  The 
Gabinian  law  gave  Pompey  a  free  hand  on  the  tacit  condition 
that  he  actually  did  the  work.  This  was,  in  fact,  a  direct 
denial  of  the  whole  scheme  of  senatorial  and  popular  rule.  The 
"  talk  of  the  dictatorship  "  current  in  Rome  during  Caesar's 
absence  in  Gaul  proves  that  people  recognized  the  want  of 
government  in  the  city  itself  and  in  the  world  at  large. 

The  first  task  of  Caesar,  therefore,  was  to  govern. 
Government  means  responsibility,  and  Caesar  undertook 
this  himself.  The  whole  executive  of  the  empire  became 
directly  or  indirectly  responsible  to  himself,  and  he  took 
care  to  be  served  by  capable  and  reliable  men.  They  were 
not  always  people  of  good  family — he  appointed  a  eunuch, 
the  son  of  a  freedman  of  his  own,  to  be  over  three  legions 
in  Alexandria,  and  some  of  his  slaves  he  set  over  the  mint 
and  the  public  revenue  department.  The  old  families  of 
Rome  grumbled  ;  but  Caesar  meant  work  to  be  done,  and 
picked  men  who  would  do  it,  irrespective  of  old  traditions — 
spreto  patrio  inore^ 

He  realized  further  that  the  old  division  of  the  world  into 
Rome  and  the  subject  empire  had  become,  by  the  substi- 
tution of  himself  for  senate  and  people  as  the  ruling  power, 
even  more  obsolete  than  it  had  virtually  been  for  some 
long  while  before.  His  introduction  of  Gauls  into  the  senate 
was  the  expression  of  this  belief.  The  angry  verses  quoted 
round  the  town  show  what  the  Romans  thought  of  this — 

Caesar  led  the  Gauls  in  triumph;  to  the  Senate-house  he 

led  ; 
And  the  Gauls  took  off  their  trousers,  wore  the  laticlave 

instead.^ 

^  Suetonius,  y^/ ////J,  76. 

^  Suetonius,  y>////^i',  80  Gallos  Caesar  in  friunifhunt  dua'f,  idem  in  curiam,  \ 
Gain  bracas  deposuenmt ,  latum  clavum  sumpscrunt. 


AUGUSTUS  153 

The  remark,  which  Suetonius  tells  us  Caesar  made,  though 
a  tactical  blunder,  was  nevertheless  a  profound  truth,  and 
the  basal  truth  of  the  whole  imperial  system.  "  The  re- 
public," he  said,  "  was  nothing — it  was  a  mere  phrase  without 
form  or  substance.",,^  For  this  nothing  Caesar  substituted  an 
intensely  real  something,  which  corresponded  with  every 
reality  in  the  empire — the  control  of  a  single  intelligence, 
which  should  make  itself  felt  uniformly  and  everywhere  in 
steady  and  intelligent  government. 

Julius,  we  might  perhaps  say,  was  murdered  for  what  he 
said  2  rather  than  for  what  he  did.  Augustus  realized  the 
one  mistake  of  his  uncle  and  did  not  repeat  it,  but  what 
Julius  had  done  before  him  he  did  again.  He  regained  the 
personal  control  of  the  entire  government,  and  established 
throughout  the  world  at  large  that  real  something  which 
Julius  had  seen  to  be  demanded  by  the  empire.  Only  in 
Rome,  because  the  Romans  had  a  traditional  preference  for 
the  nothing,  he  gave  it  them  in  words.  Whenever  by 
change  or  development  of  plan  he  got  a  firmer  grasp  of 
everything  and  made  the  reality  of  his  government  more 
real,  he  repeated  in  a  more  noticeable  tone  his  phrase  about 
'  the  restoration  of  the  republic."  ^  He  took  care  also 
to  emphasize  the  lime-limits  set  to  his  tenure  of  offices, 
ivhich  he  intended  all  the  same  to  keep  as  long  as  he  lived 
md  to  hand  on  to  his  successor.  This  is  what  M.  Goumy 
means  by  "  organizing  the  temporary  and  consecrating 
falsehood."  Augustus,  it  is  said,  on  his  death-bed  asked 
bis  friends  whether  they  thought  he  had  played  the  farce 
af  life  well  enough.^  Viewed  from  this  standpoint,  his 
ife  was  in  measure  a  farce,  but  it  was  far  from  being  this 
in  reality. 

Augustus  had  maintained  his  power  by  the  methods  with 
ivhich   he   won    it.     When  the   world  was  divided   between 

1  Suetonius,  /tilitis  77  Nihil  esse  retnpublicam,  appeUatio7iem  modo  sine  corpore 
ic  specie.     It  is  of  course  possible  that  Caesar  had  more  tact  than  to  say  so. 

*  Or  what  people  said  he  said— a  rather  different  thing,  though  often  enough 
I  manufactured  anecdote  hits  off  a  situation  more  accurately  than  a  true  one 
night. 

'  On  one  such  occasion  he  doubled  the  pay  of  his  guards. 

*  Suet.  Augm  99,  ecquid  iis  vidcrelur  minium  vilue  commode  Iransegisse. 


154  VIRGIL 

himself  and  Antony,  he  had  captured  the  general  goodwill 
by  genuine  service  of  mankind.  He  had  crushed  piracy 
on  the  sea  and  brigandage  in  Italy  ;  he  had  given  quiet 
to  all  the  West;  he  had  enabled  industry  and  business  to 
regain  their  ordinary  activity — the  fall  in  the  rate  of 
interest  was  the  sign  of  this ;  by  sense  and  firmness, 
combined  with  clemency,  he  had  gained  the  confidence 
of  serious  people  ;  and  in  negotiation  and  war  he  had 
maintained  the  credit  of  Rome  with  the  foreigner.  In 
every  one  of  these  details  his  success  stood  in  vivid  contrast 
to  the  failure  of  Antony.  When  he  died,  public  talk  in 
Rome  owned  that  "no  resource  had  been  left  for  the 
distracted  country  but  the  rule  of  one  man  ;  under  his  rule 
the  frontiers  had  been  pushed  forward  to  the  Ocean  or  to 
distinct  rivers;  the  provinces,  the  armies,  and  the  fleets 
of  the  empire  had  been  brought  into  communication  with 
one  another;  justice  had  been  dispensed  at  home;  con- 
sideration had  been  shown  to  the  allies ;  and  the  city  itself 
had  been  sumptuously  adorned."  ^ 

All  this  is  true  work,  and  has  to  be  weighed  against 
the  lies  of  statecraft  with  which  the  Emperor  kept  the 
senate  quiet.  We  may  go  further  still,  and  say  that  if, 
as  most  people  admit  upon  a  broad  view  of  it,  the  genius 
of  Rome  was  "  to  govern  the  nations,  to  crush  disorder, 
to  spare  the  subject,  and  to  set  up  and  maintain  the  wont 
and  use  of  peace,"  Augustus  was  a  genuine  embodiment 
of  this  genius,  and,  whatever  his  defects  of  mind  and 
character,  he  had,  on  the  soberest  estimate,  fulfilled  the 
destiny  of  his  people,  and  given  recognition  and  satis- 
faction to  the  instincts  and  demands  of  the  whole  Medi- 
terranean— in  other  words,  that  his  work  was  an  honest 
endeavour  to  give  expression  to  the  truth  of  the  world 
around  him. 

II 

Virgil  first  came  into  contact  with  Augustus,  or  Octavian 
as  he  was  then   called,  in   connexion  with  the   confiscation 

^  Tacitus,  Annals,  i.  9.  The  hostile  criticisms  quoted  by  Tacitus  in  the  following 
chapter  are  personal,  and  do  not  touch  the  record  of  his  real  politic-al  services. 


AUGUSTUS  155 

)f  his  farm.  That  famous  interview  he  describes — not 
'ery  clearly,  nor,  even,  very  happily — in  the  first  Eclogue. 
^e  had  seen  Rome,  the  city  without  peer,  and  he  had 
een  the  young  Caesar — 

hie  ilium  vidi  iuvenem  (42) — 

v'ho  had  in  the  most  bucolic  terms  encouraged  him  to 
\o  on  with  his  farm  life,  and  incidentally  to  make  music  with 
lis  pipe — 

ludere  quae  vellem  calamo  permisit  agresti  * — 

ind  who  will,  in  consequence,  be  to  him  a  god,  whose  face 
le  can  never  forget. 

O  Meliboee  deus  nobis  haec  otia  fecit 
namque  erit  ille  mihi  semper  deus  *  (6). 

Disentangling  Virgil  and  his  pipe  from  Tityrus  and  his 
:attle,  we  find  that  Augustus  restored  his  farm  to  the  poet, 
,nd  made  it  possible  for  him  to  live  the  life  of  "  inglorious 
[uiet"  {G.  iv.  564)  which  his  genius  required.  In  process 
)f  time  their  relations  became  closer,  and  Virgil  received 
rom  him  various  gifts  of  land  and  house  property,  though 
le  refused,  as  we  have  seen,  to  accept  an  exile's  confis- 
ated  estate.  Eventually  a  warm  friendship  bound  them  to 
■ach  other.  Augustus,  from  his  peculiar  position  and 
he  temper  it  bred,  was  a  somewhat  dangerous  and  even 
mcomfortable  friend  to  have.  He  did  not,  we  learn,  make 
riends  easily,  but  he  kept  them  when  he  made  them, 
ind  was  willing  to  tolerate  their  vices  and  foibles  "in 
noderation,"^  It  should  be  remarked  to  the  credit  of 
-\ugustus,  that  of  all  who  shared  his  friendship,  two  of 
he  most  successful  in  retaining  it  without  loss  of  dignity 
)r  independence   were   men    of  humble  origin,  one  indeed 

*  "  He  set  me  free  to  play  as  I  pleased  upon  my  rustic  pipe." 

*  "  O  Meliboeus  it  was  a  god  who  gave  us  this  peace — for  a  god  he  shall  ever 
yc  to  me." 

'  Suet.  Attg.  66,  sed  vitia  quogtie  ct  dclicta,  dnmtaxat  niodt'ca,  ferpessus, 
n  interesting  chapter  on  the  Emperor's  friendships.  Cf.  Horace,  Sat.  ii.  i. 
:o  cu!  male  si  palperc  recalcitrat. 


156  VIRGIL 

a  perfect  man  of  the  world,  the  other  a  shy  and  silent 
student — the  poets  Horace  and  Virgil. 

The  intimacy  rested  on  character  and  poetry,  and  it  is 
pleasant  to  note  the  interest  which  Emperor  and  poet  took 
in  each  other's  work.  Virgil,  we  learn,  on  one  occasion 
read  the  whole  of  the  Georgics  to  Augustus,  spreading  the 
work  over  four  days,  and  handing  the  manuscript  to 
Maecenas  when  his  voice  grew  weary. ^  In  the  Aeneid, 
as  was  natural,  the  Emperor  was  keenly  interested,  and 
in  the  course  of  the  Cantabrian  war  he  wrote  to  the  poet 
from  Spain  letters  full  of  playful  entreaties  and  equally 
playful  menaces  to  wring  from  him  "  either  a  first  draft  of 
the  poem,  or  at  any  rate  some  part  of  it."  ^ 

Whether  the  letter  of  Virgil,  which  Macrobius  has  pre- 
served, was  written  in  answer  to  these  letters  of  Augustus 
from  Spain  it  is  impossible  to  say  certainly,  but  it  may 
very  well  have  been.  He  begins,  "  I  am  receiving  frequent 
letters  from  you  "  ;  and,  lower  down  he  continues,  "  As  to 
my  Aeneas,  if  I  really  had  him  in  a  state  worthy  of  your 
ears,  I  would  gladly  send  him  ;  but  the  subject  I  have 
taken  in  hand  is  so  vast,  that  I  feel  it  was  madness  to 
attack  so  big  a  work,  particularly  when  I  have,  as  you 
know,  to  devote  other  and  more  important  study  to  that 
work."  ^     However,  at  a  later  date,  Virgil  read  the  second, 

^  Suet.  V.  Verg.  27  Georgica  reverso  post  Actiacam  victoriam  Aicgiisfo  afque 
Atellae  reficiendai~nm  faticium  causa  comnioraiiii  per  continuum  quadriduwn 
legit,  suscipiente  Maecenate  legendi  vicein,  quotiens  interpellaretur  ipse  vocis 
offensione.  Pronuntiabat  azite?n  cum  suavitate  turn  lenociniis  viiris.  Nettleship, 
Ancient  Lives,  p.  52,  calls  attention  to  the  fact  that  the  date  given  here  by 
Suetonius  is  "merely  a  general  expression." 

^  Suet.  op.  cit.  31  effiagitabat  nt  sibi  ^^ de  Aeneidc"  uf  ipsius  verba  sunt  vel 
prima  carminis  \jwoypa,<p7)  vel  quodlibet  colojt  mitteretur. 

^  Macr.  Sat.  i.  24,  1 1  Ipsius  enim  Maronis  epistula,  qua  compellat  Augustnm, 
ita  incipit  "  Ego  ve7-o  frequentes  a  te  lift  eras  accipio"  et  infra  *'  de  Aenea  quidem 
meo,  si  mehercle  iam  dignum  atiribus  haberem  tuis,  libenter  mitterem,  sed  tanta 
[v.  1.  tafituni]  incohata  res  est  ut  paene  vitio  mentis  tantum  opus  ingrcssus  mihi 
videar,  cum  praesertim ,  tit  scis,  alia  quoque  studia  ad  id  opus  7Hultoque  potiora 
ijnpcrtiar."     It  is  suggested  that  ad  id  opus  may  mean  "  beside  that  work." 

Tacitus  {Dial.  13)  seems  to  imply  that  the  letters  of  Augustus  to  Virgil  were 
extant :  nequc  apud  divum  Augustum  gratia  caruit  .  .  .  testes  Augusti  epistolae. 
Seneca  the  elder  may  be  referring  to  Virgil's  letters,  when  he  says  {Controv.  iii. 
praef.  8),  Ciceronem  eloquentia  sua  in  carminibtis  destituit,  Vergiliutyt  ilia 
felicitas  ingenii  in  07-atione  soluta  reliquit. 


AUGUSTUS  157 

fourth,  and  sixth  books  of  the  Aencid  to  Augustus  and 
Octavia.  Suetonius  records  that,  when  the  poet  came  to  the 
famous  passage  Tu  Marccllus  eris,  Octavia  fainted.* 

Finally,  it  was  when  travelling  with  Augustus  that  Virgil 
contracted,  on  a  visit  to  the  ruins  of  Megara,  the  illness  of 
which  he  died. 

It  has  long  been  remarked  how  congenial  Virgil  found 
the  political  changes  of  Augustus.  It  was  partly  because 
neither  hereditary  nor  personal  ties  bound  him  to  the  old 
order  which  Augustus  had  ended  ;  and  partly  that  the  real 
^ains,  which  the  rule  of  Augustus  meant  for  the  world  and 
for  Italy,  appealed  to  the  poet.  The  silence  of  the  forum, 
kvhich  Cicero  had  found  intolerable  under  Julius,  meant 
nothing  to  the  native  of  Cisalpine  Gaul.  "  How  many  were 
left  who  had  known  the  republic .'' "  asks  Tacitus,  when 
le  is  explaining  the  peacefulness  of  the  later  period  of 
Augustus'  reign.2  He  refers  to  Romans.  But  the  republic 
ivas  little  or  nothing  to  Italians,  excepting  individuals  who 
>ought  their  fortune  at  Rome.  For  Cicero  nearly  the 
-vhole  of  life  was  bound  up  with  republican  constitution  and 
jsage ;  but  even  he,  popular  as  he  was  with  the  Italians, 
:ould  wake  in  them  no  enthusiasm  for  a  government  which 
lad  meant  to  them  oppression  of  every  kind.  The  Senate 
md  people  of  Rome  had  treated  Italy  with  contempt  and 
njustice  ;  they  had  refused  the  franchise,  and,  when  it  was 
vrung  from  them  by  force  of  arms,  they  had  in  great 
neasure  neutralized  it  by  political  chicane.  The  traditions 
)f  Sulla  were  all  associated  with  that  .senatorial  rule  which 
le  had  laboured  to  make  secure,  and  they  made  it  the  more 
inpopular  ;  nor  had  the  careers  of  "  Sulla's  men,"  of  Pompey 
md  of  Catiline,  done  anything  to  abate  the  ill-will  which 
till  attached  itself  to  the  name  of  Sulla. 

Virgil  was  no  doubt  familiar  from  childhood  with  the 
tory  of  the  political  aspirations  of  his  fellow-country- 
nen,  of  Sulla  and  the  Senate,  and  all  his  national  feeling 
vould  direct  his  sympathies  away  from  the  fallen  republic  to 
he   great  house  which  had    made   Italy  one.     It  must    be 

1   V.  Verg.  32.     Marcellus  was  her  son  who  had  died  young. 
'  Annals,  i.  3.  7. 


158  VIRGIL 

remembered,  too,  that  Virgil  neither  had,  nor,  apparently, 
wished  to  have,  any  experience  of  poHtical  life — hardly 
any  of  active  life  of  whatever  kind.  For  all  his  interest 
in  Roman  history,  he  had  little  or  no  sympathy  for 
republican  institutions,  for  the  spectacle  of  a  great  people 
governing  itself.  The  old  Roman  commonwealth,  praised 
by  Polybius  and  sighed  for  by  Cicero,  was  a  thing  foreign 
to  his  mind.  His  own  people  had  been  governed  for 
centuries ;  they  had  not  governed  themselves ;  they  had 
had  no  share  in  the  inner  movement  of  Roman  political 
life  ;  they  had  been  ruled  from  without.  Consequently  the 
republic,  lying  quite  outside  Virgil's  experience,  touched 
his  imagination  but  little  or  not  at  all. 

And,  again,  Virgil's  whole  nature  was  on  the  side  of 
peace.  His  ideal  was  a  quiet  life  unruffled  by  the  storms 
of  political  disorder,  and,  still  more,  unassailed  by  the 
fiercer  storms  of  civil  war  ;  and  for  a  century  republican 
government  had  meant  incessant  strife,  bloodshed,  war,  and 
confiscations — the  utter  unsettlement  of  life — 

tot  bella  per  orbem, 
tam  multas  scelerum  facies,  non  ullus  aratro 
dignus  honos,  squalent  abductis  arva  colonis  ^  {G.  i.  505). 

It  was  not  until  the  republican  party  was  finally  driven 
out  of  Italy  that  the  land  began  to  recover  itself;  nor, 
until  it  was  crushed  throughout  the  world,  that  wars  ceased 
and  the  temple  of  Janus  was  closed.  In  a  word,  the  victory 
of  Augustus  meant  the  restoration  of  the  proper  and  normal 
life  of  man. 

Augustus  Caesar,  divi  genus,  aurea  condet 
secula  qui  rursus  Latio  regnata  per  arva 
Saturno  quondam  ^  (vi.  792). 

1  "So  many  wars  throughout  the  world,  so  many  forms  of  sin  ;  none  of  the 
honour  that  is  its  due  is  left  to  the  plough  ;  the  husbandman  is  matched  away  and 
the  fields  lie  dirty." 

2  "  Augustus  Caesar,  true  child  of  a  god,  who  shall  establish  again  for  Latium  a 
golden  age  in  that  very  region  where  Saturn  once  reigned"  (Conington).  The 
original  aurea  secula  were  under  Saturn's  rule,  according  to  Evander  {Aen. 
viii.  324). 


AUGUSTUS  159 

This  return  of  the  golden  age  carried  with  it  the 
restoration  of  all  that  was  venerable  and  worthy  in  the 
past.  Augustus  restored  or  rebuilt  the  ancient  temples, 
beside  building  new  ones.  "  The  number,  dignity,  and  allow- 
inces  of  the  priests  he  increased,  particularly  those  of  the 
V^estal  virgins,"  says  Suetonius;  "some  too  of  the  ancient 
:eremonies,  which  had  gradually  fallen  into  disuse,  he 
reinstituted,  as  for  example  the  Auguriuin  Salutis^  the 
laminate  of  Jupiter,  the  Lupercal  festival  [we  may  add 
:he  Arval  Brothers].  .  .  Honour  next  to  that  of  the  immortal 
jods  he  paid  to  the  memory  of  the  generals  who  had  found 
:he  Roman  people's  empire  small  and  made  it  great."  ^ 
Everything  that  an  Emperor  could  do  he  did  by  statute 
ind  example  to  encourage  morality  and  family  life.  It 
Tiust  be  owned  that  his  laws  compelling  marriage  were 
lot  very  successful,  but  his  severity  in  dealing  with  his 
uckless  daughter  Julia  is  evidence  that  he  was  in  earnest 
n  his  resolve  that  marriage  should  be  respected.^  Just  as 
le  tried  to  purge  the  popular  pantheon  of  alien  unauthorized 
jods,  such  as  Apis,^  he  purged  the  Senate  of  its  more  un- 
vorthy  members — no  doubt,  including  among  them  some  of 
he  Gauls  whom  Julius  had  made  senators — and  he  took  care 
o  restore  to  that  body  its  ancient  decorum  and  splendour, 
)ut  not  its  old  power.  Even  the  dress  of  his  fellow  citizens 
lid  not  escape  the  Emperor's  eye,  and  in  after  years  he  could 
md  did  quote,  "  with  indignation  and  in  a  loud  voice,"  a 
jreat  line  of  Virgil  to  support  his  zeal  for  the  toga.* 

This  religious  reformation  was  bound  to  be  superficial  ^ ; 
t  was  certainly  a  piece  of  studied  policy  like  the  more 
elaborate  pretence  of  "  restoring  the  republic  "  by  permitting 
he  election  of  magistrates   with  republican  titles.     In  the 

^  Suet.  Aug.  29-31, 

*  See  Boissier,  V  Opposition  sous  les  Cisars,  pp.  133  ff.,  who  shrewdly  remarks 
hat  the  Emperor's  cold-blooded  method  of  marrying  and  remarrying  her, 
without  reference  to  her  own  wishes,  to  men  whom  he  forced  to  divorce  wives 
eally  loved,  was  hardly  calculated  to  "make  a  Lucretia  of  Julia."  For  the 
iws,  cf.  Suet.  Aug.  34. 

*  Suet.  Aug.  93.     The  Emperor  frowned  on  Judaism,  too,  among  Romans. 

*  Suet.  Aug.  40  Romanos  rcriim  doiiiinos  genlemqtie  togalani. 

'  There  was,  however,  a  real  revival  of  religion,  which  began  at  this  time, 
ut  it  did  not  develop  along  the  lines  laid  down  by  the  Emperor. 


i6o  VIRGIL 

long  run  the  one  was  found  to  be  scarcely  more  genuine  or 
real  than  the  other.  But,  for  the  moment,  this  great  idea  of 
restoration  appealed  to  the  imagination  of  serious  people. 
It  was  supported  by  the  poet  Horace,  who  wrote  a  number 
of  Odes  to  show  that  he  too  would  be  as  happy  as  the 
Emperor  himself  to  see  other  people  married  and  pious.^ 

Virgil,  too,  was  interested  and  took  his  share  in  the  work, 
though  the  solemn  utterances  of  Horace  about  violet-beds 
and  pier-building,  about  the  restoration  of  temples  and  the 
lex  de  inaritandis  ordmibus^  hardly  came  into  his  conception 
of  poetry.  Still,  he  was  attracted,  and  probably  more  really 
attracted  than  Horace,  by  this  aspect  of  the  Emperor's  work, 
inasmuch  as  he  was  of  all  the  poets  of  Rome  the  most 
interested  and  intelligent  student  of  Roman  and  Italian 
antiquities.  The  old  garb  and  phrase,  the  old  use  and 
ritual,  appealed  to  him  as  a  poet.  They  were  not  to  him, 
as  to  the  antiquary,  mere  curiosities  of  history,  but  relics 
which  made  a  forgotten  day  live  again,  symbols  that 
expressed  the  real  grandeur  of  an  ancient  people,  with 
whom  he  and  his  day  might  still  feel  a  spiritual  kinship. 
If  to  Augustus  this  restoration  of  the  past  was  a  political 
device — and  perhaps  even  to  him  it  was  more — for  Virgil 
it  had  a  deeper  import,  and  his  regard  for  the  Emperor, 
as  his  personal  friend  and  as  the  giver  of  peace  to  his 
country,  was  deepened  by  the  thought  that  in  him  the 
present  was  being  re-linked  to  the  past  in  a  hundred  ways, 
all  full  of  poetic  significance  and  suggestion. 

We  may  go  further  and  recognize  in  Virgil  a  certain 
admiration  for  the  personal  character  of  Augustus — an 
admiration  which  the  historians  do  not  make  it  very  easy 
for  us  to  share,  but  which  should   at  least  be  considered 

^  Horace  in  a  short  ode  informs  us  of  his  conversion  from  "  insane  philosophy." 
But  Faunus  and  Jupiter  acting  in  concert  to  convert  the  Epicurean  poet,  the  one 
holding  up  the  falling  branch  and  the  other  thundering  from  a  blue  sky,  are  more 
delightful  than  convincing.  Odes  ii.  17,  27  ;  and  i.  34.  There  was  rather  more 
than  a  strain  of  superstition  in  Augustus,  and  as  little  of  it  in  Horace  as  in  any- 
body. The  odes,  in  which  he  takes  the  high  imperial  line  of  virtue  and  reforma- 
tion, are  very  curious.  It  is  hard  to  imagine  anyone  taking  them  very  seriously 
who  knew  Horace  at  all  well,  and  it  is  impossible  to  suppose  them  to  be  banter. 
Perhaps  Augustus  thought  they  would  do  for  his  public. 


AUGUSTUS  i6i 

along  with  their  judgements  upon  the  Emperor.  It  is  part 
of  the  poet's  character  to  "count  nothing  human  as  alien," 
and  it  not  infrequently  happens  that  the  man  of  reflection 
finds  a  peculiar  interest  in  the  man  of  action,  of  capacity, 
of  achievement — in  the  man  who  does  things.^  In  a  world 
of  scattered  minds,  of  minds  wasted  by  diffusion  of  effort, 
there  is  something  magnetic  in  the  man  who  will  set  before 
him  one  definite  goal,  who  will  steadily  resist,  even  to  the 
point  of  seeming  insensible  to  them,  the  temptations  offered 
by  pleasure  or  by  pain  to  lead  him  aside,  and  who  at  last 
achieves  his  goal  in  virtue  of  this  singleness  of  aim. 
Augustus  was  a  man  of  this  type.  The  famous  interview 
with  Cleopatra  is  the  standard  illustration  of  his  inflexi- 
bility ;  but  his  whole  life  is  one  long  repression  of  instinct 
and  impulse,  and  not  merely  of  his  own,  for  he  demanded 
as  much  of  those  around  him — as  his  daughter  and  as 
Tiberius  could  testify.  A  hard,  cold  man,  neither  friend- 
ship nor  hostility  could  distract  him  from  policy.  He 
could  be  reconciled  to  Plancus ;  he  could  sacrifice  his  sister 
Octavia  to  Antony.  But  to  his  great  purpose  of  ruling  and 
regenerating  the  Roman  Empire  he  was  inexorably  faithful. 
How  far  self-interest  and  patriotism  conflict  or  conspire 
in  shaping  the  purposes  of  a  great  ruler,  especially  of  a 
ruler  who  has  to  fight  his  way  to  power,  it  is  difficult  to 
estimate  in  any  case.  Probably  the  mere  love  of  personal 
power,  which  a  vulgar  mind  feels,  is  in  the  case  of  greater 
men  lifted  into  a  higher  region,  and  becomes  a  love  of 
achievement,  of  construction  ;  and  the  man  who  is  really 
fitted  to  use  power  enjoys  it,  not  so  much  for  possessing 
it,  as  for  the  opportunity  it  gives  him  to  accomplish  some- 
thing of  broad  reference,  which  could  not  be  done,  or  could 
not  be  done  so  well,  by  another.  Hence  in  a  character 
like  Augustus — or  even  Sulla — what  in  a  smaller  man  we 
should  have  to  regard  as  merely  selfish  has  in  reality  a 
nobler  element.     The  personal   motive  is   subordinated   to 

*  Cf.  Prof.  Dowden,  Shakespeare,  His  Mind  and  Art,  ch.  vi.  p.  281  :  "  Shake- 
speare's admiration  of  the  great  men  of  action  is  immense,  because  he  himself  was 
primarily  not  a  man  of  action."  There  is  of  course  a  school  of  critics  who  hold 
:he  opposite  view — that  Shakespeare  preferred  Richard  II.  to  Henry  V.  See 
ilso  Froude's  Carlyic's  Life  in  Lotdon,  19  February  183S,  vol.  i.  p.  138. 


i62  VIRGIL 

wider  and  more  really  generous  considerations,  and,  while 
we  have  to  own  that  the  character  is  still  unlovely,  we  have 
to  admit  a  certain  nobility.  Thus  in  the  case  of  Augustus, 
Virgil  looks  to  the  higher  quality  of  the  man,  to  his  real 
patriotism,  to  his  political  wisdom,  to  his  love  of  peace,  and 
never  forgets  that,  whatever  the  superficial  or  even  the 
essential  weakness  and  inadequacy  of  the  Emperor's  nature, 
he  had  in  truth  sought  and  achieved  peace  and  regeneration 
for  his  country  and  the  Empire.^ 

Viro-il  finds  the  colour  and  movement  of  human  life  and 
the  unfolding  of  human  character  more  moving  than  the 
play  of  political  principles.  When  he  contemplates  Roman 
history,  he  is  attracted  more  by  the  heroes  than  by  the  great 
forward  movement  of  political  thought  implied  in  the  growth 
and  progress  of  the  Roman  republic.  The  temper  and  qualities, 
which  he  admires  in  the  hero,  are  rather  those  necessary  to 
any  stable  human  society  than  those  required  for  the  self- 
croverning  state.  Even  if  he  speaks  oi populum  late  regem,  it 
is  rather  of  Rome's  government  of  the  conquered  that  he 
thinks  than  of  the  republican  constitution.  A  well-known 
simile  in  the  first  book  will  illustrate  his  mind.^ 

As  in  a  great  assembly,"  when  Discord  leaps  at  a  word 
Suddenly  forth,  and  ignoble  crowds  with  fury  are  stirred, 
Firebrands  fly,  stones  volley,  the  weapons  furnished  of  wrath, — 
If  peradventure  among  them  a  Man  stand  forth  in  the  path 
Loyal  and  grave,  long  honoured  for  faithful  service  of  years, 
Seeing    his    face    they    are   silent,    and    wait    with    listening 

ears  : 
He  with  his  counsel  calms  their  souls,  assuages  their  ire. 

{A.  i.  148-53,  Bowen.) 

This  is  not  a  sympathetic  picture  of  Democracy,  though  it 
is  fairly  true  for  the  last  century  of  the  republic  ;  and,  when 

1  Cf.  J.  T^'  Green,  Stray  Studies,  p.  283  ;  and  Pierron,  La  Lit.  rom.  p.  399. 
So  Georgii  in  a  Progranim  (Stuttgart,  1880),  cited  by  Norden,  Neue  Jahrbucher 

fjir  das  kl.  Altertum,  vol.  vii.  p.  250:  "Augustus  wird  von  Vergil  nur  verherr- 
licht  sofern  er  die  romischen  Dinge  aus  klaglicher  Verwirrung  gercttet,  den 
Weltfrieden  begriindet  und  das  romische  Volk  zu  seinem  Berufe  zuriickgefiihrt  hat." 

2  Cf.  Sainte-Beuve,  Etudes  sur  Virgile,  pp.  229-32. 
2  The  word  is  popu  I  a,  and  it  is  significant. 


AUGUSTUS  163 

we  set  beside  it  the  hopeless  scene  where  Latinus  consults 
his  people  (A.  xi),  and  the  sketch  of  the  typical  democratic 
leader  Drances,  iargns  oputn,  lingua  melior,  seditione  potcns  ^ 
(xi.  336-41),  a  man  with  some  doubtful  places  in  his 
pedigree,  it  can  hardly  be  maintained  that  Virgil's  admira- 
tion for  the  old  Roman  character  included  any  regard  for 
the  old  government.  It  is  the  vir pietate gravis  ac  meritis 
whom  he  prefers — the  hero.  Poets  as  a  rule  are  not  poli- 
ticians, and,  as  they  grow  old,  they  often  lapse  into  pre- 
ferring freedom  to  be  "sober-suited."  The  author  of  our 
only  "  revolutionary  epic  "  became  a  Tory  prime  minister  and 
an  earl. 2 

Virgil  then  found  in  Augustus  a  friend,  a  saviour  of  his 
country,  and  a  heroic  character.  Each  of  these  considera- 
tions may  help  us  to  realize  that,  however  much  exaggerated 
we  may  think  it,  his  praise  of  the  Emperor  is  at  least  the 
outcome  of  honest  feeling,  and  is  so  far  legitimate.  It 
remains  now  to  review  his  references  to  Augustus  in  his 
poety,  direct  and  indirect. 


Ill 

Quite  early  in  the  Aeneid,  in  fact  in  the  first  utterance  of 
Jupiter,  we  find  the  prophecy  of  Augustus'  reign  (i.  257). 
Whether  the  Julius  (288)  of  Jupiter's  speech  is  Augustus,  as 
many  editors  think,  or  Julius  the  Dictator,  as  Dr  Henry 
maintains,  the  immediate  allusion  to  the  closing  of  the 
temple  of  Janus  clearly  refers  to  Augustus.     Venus  may  be 

^  "  Lavish  of  his  wealth,  a  master  with  his  tongue,  powerful  in  the  arts  of 
faction." 

*  See    Dowden    on    Shakespeare's  attitude  to   Democracy  {Shakespeare,   His 
Mind  and  Art,  ch.   vi.  §  3,  pp.    319  ff.) :   "  It  was  only  after  such  an  immense 
achievement  as  that  of  1789,  such  a  proof  of  power  as  the  French  Revolution 
afforded,  that  moral  dignity,  the  spirit  of  self-control  and  self-denial,  the  heroic 
devotion  of  masses  of  men   to  ideas  and  not  merely  interests,   could   begin  to 
manifest  themselves."     See  Wordsworth,  Frelude,  bk.    ix.    354-389,  on  his  dis- 
cussions with  Beaupuy  in  1793,  with  the  spectacle  before  their  eyes  of 
a  people  from  the  depth 
Of  shameful  imbecility  uprisen, 
Fresh  as  the  morning  star.     Elate  we  looked 
Upon  their  virtues  ;  saw,  in  rudest  men, 
Self-sacrifice  the  firmest ;  &c. 


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Kc.toi  ri   >>l  t  hr  .i',;r  ol  ;;ol(l 

In  l.in*l"i  whrii*  .S.itmn  niKnl  ol  old  ; 

(Vol   IntI  ;uul  I  i.iiiim.mt  r\ttcmr 

.".li.ill  -.lird  li  hi'.  l)o\in»llc!«m  I'clj^n. 
Look  lo  lli.it  l.nul  whu  h  Urs  <i('(U' 
Mr)'<>inl  tl\r  (i.ilh  oIMmi  or  stuv, 
W'hrir  Atl.r.  on  hi>.  •.Iionhjci*  I'curi 
Thr  ImnhMi  »»rthr  iMi'Minl>rnt  Mphoixsjl, 
l'Y,\'|>t  rVii  MOW  iUitl  Ci'.pi.i  hr.ir 
The  niuttrifd  voii  V'  ol  iu.iii\'  .1  ■..fi . 
.\iul  NiU^'.'s  Nrvrn  uunith.s.  ilistmlinl  wiili  i.-.n 

Their  rominji  roM(|Mrror  lu»*)\v  . 
,\U  i»K  s  in  his  suvaj.jr  cha.so 
Nr'ri  tr.ivoMr«l  oVi  .so  wide  a  sparr, 
What  thoiii'.h  thr  l»iass  ho»»h^l  lUri  lu-  killrd. 
.\n>l  I'lNui.uithif;  lotrst  ,stilU-il, 

\ii>l  I  riu.i's  thpth  w  ith  Inioi  thnll.d 

At  t\\.iii)Mn;;  ol  his  how  : 
Nor  .strotohnl  hi.i  «on«niiiiii!;  m.mh  .0  i.n 
\\'\\o  ilrovr  his  ivy  haiurssal  t-.u 
l'"roii\  Ny.sa's  K>tty  hrij^ht,  aiul  hrokr 

The  ti|-icr'n  .spirit  'urath  his  yukr. 
:\\\k\  .shrink  w<'  in  this  {.'.hMioiis  hour 
l""iv)n\  liiiUhMp,  wi>ilh  assoil  her  power, 


Af'GLSTCS  t6s 

(>f  can  «mf  tnvtm  keatU  recoil 
Vr«m  mittimg  cm  Amacmitm  uA  ? 

,',u-<\'4"!  '""->  '■:..:  •'.*/  ':.'4..'    ;>..'!   '/-.   .'.^>e*«, — amd  it  m 

A'..  r$  to  mtuik  to  Mm  m  Awcfcttw  her«  hoped 

it  '  iMMC  Ittre  appealed  to  tW  Efliperof . 

It                                   r4ciiid  at  onc«  at  tlM;  vtedicMor  tA 

koauM    nuytHy  thffMffiiout   the  w<jrid — for   even 

tfea  Mtiwdom  to  ImAiam  wm  otA  j^  Mmatkal 

Implrjttoi    and  aa  tkt  rttitorer  /t. 

I'ht  la»t  Mty  )kktM  c4  the  t  ^tki  jm  €¥tn 

ttifAK  lAabofniU  accoust  of  tf>^    .  .f 

t/K:   t/MMipIl  of  Ai^tMiOf  oyer  A  / 
hi»  teayte^bujld^f  a^d  of  t 
aii  pktMwl  M  the        ^  ^ 
tkat,  the  patMff 

Of)  Angttittia,  wl».                I   wa»  .  wrtte,  a»d  for 

WlMCbJMflMy> 

At  afl  ««r<«t< 
florfcaof: 
Tbcv  r 

bat  w'. 

if  tlie  i€ifUvM  f/i  >  ere  the  jjawie  '/f  Iroy,  nr/w  the 
cU/tiny  '  *'-  '  '  .-..>.,,  pj^jjig^ fwrendcr 
of  Cr;>  yitU^me  tettple  of 
Apollo,  ar  /f  jvjaroeuui,  Even  to  Mnali  a 
-" ^'  •  -'  '-'    ' -'  ^'rnial 

d  or 

(^K;tar»— 

Atyf,  fCMM  wide  Atij  dtixere  I..atioj  ^  (v,  '/Z). 

Fttftlier  detail  wiJl  rvot  be  needed.  The  poern  could  Itardly 
c*rry  more  of  thi«  direct  kind  of  iilutv/n  Uj  the  Ewperor, 
7>>ere  ii  m^x*:  of  it  than  the  s»odern  re^dtr — the  w/O'LkXin 
rt9dtr^<^t4  to  ftmtmber.  Yet  there  are  critkt  who  go 
further  still  in  WMng  Utr  Augtiftuf  in  the  poem. 

"  A'r*.  (mm  «lbM»  ar«  d>wradii<  due  fji^m  Mk." 


i66  VIRGIL 

It  is  sometimes  said  that  Aeneas  is  drawn  from  the 
Emperor.  Dunlop,  cited  by  Sainte-Beuve,  carries  the 
parallel  into  detail.^  Aeneas  has  a  remarkable  filial  piety 
for  Anchises,  as  Augustus  for  Julius  ;  ^  he  is  compared  to 
Apollo,  as  Augustus  loved  to  be ;  ^  the  descent  of  the 
one  into  hell  answers  to  the  other's  initiation  into  the 
mysteries ;  the  war  against  Turnus,  Latinus,  and  Amata, 
reproduces  that  against  Antony,  his  brother  Lucius,  and 
Fulvia  ;  and  Dido  is  Cleopatra  herself.  Turnus  is  Antony, 
says  Dunlop ;  Achates  is  Agrippa ;  Lavinia,  Livia  ;  the 
orator  Drances  ("  oh  !  ici  je  me  revolte  ")  would  be  Cicero.* 
"  Non,  non,  encore  une  fois  non,  me  crie  de  toutes  ses 
forces  ma  conscience  poetique,"  cries  Sainte-Beuve,  and 
every  one  with  any  poetic  conscience  at  all  will  agree 
with  him. 

But  is  there  then  no  connexion  between  the  characters  of 
Augustus  and  Aeneas  ?  An  illustration  (if  one  is  needed) 
from  English  literature  may  help  us  to  a  right  point  of  view. 
Browning  was  beset  with  questions  by  people  who  wished 
to  know  if  his  poem  T/ie  Lost  Leader  referred  to  Wordsworth 
— was  Wordsworth  the  Lost  Leader?  In  1875  he  wrote  to 
one  of  these  correspondents  the  following  explanation  :  "  I 
did  in  my  hasty  youth  presume  to  use  the  great  and 
venerated  personality  of  Wordsworth  as  a  sort  of  painter's 
model ;  one  from  which  this  or  the  other  particular  feature 
may  be  selected  and  turned  to  account ;  had  I  intended 
more,  above  all,  such  a  boldness  as  portraying  the  entire 
man,  I  should  not  have  talked  about  '  handfuls  of  silver  and 
bits  of  ribbon.'  These  never  influenced  the  change  of 
politics  in  the  great  poet.  .  .  .  But  just  as  in  the  tapestry  on 
my  wall  I  can  recognize  figures  which  have  struck  out  a  fancy, 
on    occasion,   that    though    truly   enough    thus   derived,   yet 

^  Sainte-Beuve,  Etude  sur  Virile,  p.  63.     Merivale,  Hisl.  of  A'omans  under  '■■ 

Empire,  vol.  v.  ch.  xli.  pp.  107-8,  traces  a  somewhat  similar  series  of  parallels,  ' 

though  he  owns  that  "  the  opinion  that  Augustus  himself  is  specially  represented  J 

by  Aeneas  cannot  be  admitted  without  great  reservation" — e.g.  Aeneas'  omens  ' 
and  tears  and  betrayal  of  Dido  should  be  deducted. 

*  Cf.  Monument  of  Ancyra,  §  2  qui parentem  ineuni  interfeceru7it,  eos  inexilium 
expidi  itidiciis  legitimis  ultus  eoru»i  facinus.  1 

^  See  Patin,  La  Poi'sie  latine,  i.  p.  64  ;  cf.  Suetonius,  Augustus  70.  I 

*  I  gather  from  Conington's  edition  that  Dunlop  is  not  alone  here. 


AUGUSTUS  167 

would  be  preposterous  as  a  copy,  so,  though  I  dare  not  deny 
the  original  of  my  little  poem,  I  altogether  refuse  to  have 
it  considered  as  the  '  very  effigies '  of  such  a  moral  and 
intellectual  superiority,"  ^ 

These  words  of  Browning  may  fairly  be  applied  to  the 
case  of  Aeneas  and  Augustus.  Virgil  was  "turning  to 
account "  many  features  which  he  admired  in  the  character 
of  the  Emperor,  and  the  Emperor  was  "  a  sort  of  painter's 
model,"  though  we  must  not  forget  that  after  all  the  ideal 
figure,  in  which  Virgil  has  embodied  so  man)-  borrowed 
features,  stands,  as  his  ancestor,  in  a  closer  relation  to  the 
model  than  the  Lost  Leader  did  to  Wordsworth.  If  we  go 
beyond  this  we  shall  find  it  difficult  to  explain  what  ad- 
vantage the  Acneid  has  over  a  mere  historical  poem.  A 
creaking  allegory,  with  a  figure  drawn  from  life  in  the  very 
middle  of  it,  is  not  likely  to  have  been  Virgil's  idea  of  an 
epic.  The  poet  draws  the  largest  and  most  heroic  figure  he 
can  conceive,  and  even  if  in  some  of  its  traits  it  resembles 
Augustus,  it  is  more  truly  an  ideal  for  the  Emperor  to 
follow  than  a  portrait  of  what  he  actually  is. 

A  somewhat  similar  reply  may  be  made  to  the  critics  who, 
without  adopting  the  theory  of  Dunlop  in  all  its  wooden- 
ness,  speak  nevertheless  as  if  the  main  purpose,  or  one  of 
the  main  purposes,  of  the  Aeneid  was  to  serve  as  a  sort  of 
political  pamphlet,  "  a  vindication  of  monarchy,"  to  quote 
Dean  Merivale.^  Olympus  and  Troy  are  monarchical  ;  all 
the  demi-gods  and  heroes  have  been  kings.  "  Hence  the 
Romans  may  submit  without  dishonour  to  the  sceptre  "  of 
Augustus,  who  "  has  recovered  the  kingdom  of  his  ancestors," 
and  whose  "  legitimate  right  may  be  traced  to  his  illustrious 
ancestors";  for  by  the  extinction  of  the  house  of  Ilus,  "all 
its  rights  and  honours,  its  hopes  and  aspirations,  have 
reverted  to  the  offspring  of  the  cadet  Assaracus."  A  French 
critic,  who  is  generally  sounder,  takes  the  same  line — "  Qui 
dit  monarchic,  dit  legitimite.  Virgile  allait  offrir,  dans 
VAneide,  les  parchemins  attestant  la  legitimite  *de  la  maison 

^  The  Cambridge  edition  of  Browning,  p.  164  (Houghton,  MiflBin  &  Co., 
Boston  and  New  York). 

*  Merivale,  0/.  cit.,  pp.  104-5,  from  whom  I  gather  the  phrases  which  follow. 


i68  VIRGIL 

Julienne."  ^  We  may  forgive  M.  Goumy  for  his  epigram, 
but  both  he  and  Dean  Merivale  seem  here  to  have  left  poetr}^ 
for  prose  of  the  most  commonplace  level.  To  begin, 
Augustus  was  not  king,  and  aimed  at  avoiding  any  appear- 
ance of  monarchy ;  and  though  Virgil,  as  we  have  seen,  had 
no  regrets  for  the  old  days  of  the  republic,  he  understood 
and  shared  Roman  feeling  too  deeply  to  flaunt  a  thoroughly 
un-Roman  ideal.  Aeneas  is  a  king,  but  Augustus  stands  in 
the  line  of  Brutus,  of  Fabius  Cunctator,  of  Scipio,  a  hero  and 
a  saviour.  Of  course  the  Aeneid  is  full  of  personal  rule — so 
is  the  Iliad,  which  it  professes  to  follow — but  personal  rule 
is  with  Virgil  a  means  and  not  an  end.  He  has  given  us 
again  and  again  Augustus'  title  to  rule — his  fulfilment  of 
Rome's  destiny  and  his  embodiment  of  the  great  ideas  of 
the  race.  Aeneas'  claim  to  Trojan  loyalty  is  not  his  descent 
so  much  as  his  nature.  Descent  as  a  title  to  sovereignty 
was  German  and  Oriental,  and  not  Roman  till  Diocletian's 
era.2  There  is  a  vindication  of  Augustus,  and  a  great  one, 
running  through  the  Aeneid;  but  to  suggest  that  this  appeal 
to  ancestry  and  the  monarchical  Olympus  is  Virgil's 
conception  of  a  defence  of  his  hero  is  to  mistake  the  values 
of  things  fundamentally,  and  to  misrepresent  the  poet — and 
perhaps  the  Emperor,  and  certainly  the  Roman  people,  who 
were  not  to  be  won  by  such  flimsy  pleading.  And,  what  is 
more  important,  if  such  a  presentment  of  monarchy  was 
politically  futile,  it  was  even  more  to  be  condemned  from  the 
point  of  view  of  poetry.  Poets,  it  is  true,  have  written  to 
support  all  sorts  of  things — even  to  defend  capital  punish- 
ment.^ But  Virgil,  as  we  have  seen,  had  deliberately 
rejected  the  project  of  writing  an  epic  about  Augustus,  and 
he  would  probably  have  felt  that  to  inculcate  "  royalist "  or 

^  Goumy,  Lcs  Latins,  p.  200.  One  feels  M.  Goumy  must  have  been  thinking 
of  the  Comte  de  Chambord  and  his  cousins.  Indeed  English  scholars  have  not 
always  been  exempt  from  the  charge  of  thinking  about  France  and  her  revolutions 
when  they  supposed  they  were  writing  ancient  history. 

*  The  "divine  right  of  kings"  has  a  Levitical  ancestry,  and  owes  a  good  deal 
to  the  fact  that  it  could  be  used  against  the  papal  theory  that  all  kings  derived 
their  power  from  the  pope.     See  Trevelyan,  Engla^id  under  the  Stuai-is,  p.  105. 

3  Whether  the  political  value  of  such  poetry  has  been  more  or  less  trifling  than 
its  poetical  value,  may  be  questioned.  Did  Horace  do  more  to  promote  marriage 
or  Wordsworth  to  delay  the  Reform  Bill  ? 


AUGUSTUS  169 

"legitimist"  opinions  in  the  course  of  the  work  he  had 
chosen  would  have  been  to  go  back  to  an  idea  which  he  had 
rejected  as  unpoetical.  Virgil  put  too  serious  a  value  on 
poetry  to  care  to  spend  his  genius  on  a  matter  so  essentially- 
trivial  and  external. 

Closely  connected  with  this  subject  is  another  question. 
What  was  the  attitude  of  Virgil  to  the  deification  of 
Augustus?  In  the  first  Eclogue  he  announces  that  Octavian 
"will  ever  be  a  god  for  him,"  and  that  in  his  honour  many 
a  lamb  shall  stain  the  altar  with  its  blood.  In  the  beginning 
of  the  first  Gcorgic  he  again  speaks  of  Augustus'  deity  with 
much  disquisition  on  the  various  spheres  in  which  he  may 
hereafter  exercise  his  divine  power.  What  does  it  all 
meanpi 

Far  too  much  stress  may  be  laid  on  these  passages.  In 
the  first  place,  the  Eclogue  is  after  all  largely  symbolic 
throughout.  Virgil  was  not  Tityrus,  or  at  most  he  was 
only  partially  Tityrus;  and,  however  appropriate  or  in- 
appropriate the  proposal  to  make  a  god  of  Octavian  may 
have  been  in  the  mouth  of  a  herd  and  a  freedman,  there 
is  so  much  in  the  rest  of  the  poem  which  is  manifestly 
absurd,  if  applied  directly  to  Virgil,  that  it  is  wiser  not  to 
take  this  passage  as  the  indication  of  any  feeling  of  Virgil's 
other  than  gratitude.  He  was  an  Epicurean  still,  and  even 
if  gratitude  made  him  write  frigid  poetry,  it  could  not  rob 
him  of  his  sanity.  As  to  the  passage  in  the  first  Georgic^ 
it  should  be  compared  with  the  rendering  which  Catullus 
made  of  the  Coma  Berenices.  The  elaborate  enumera- 
tion of  the  realms  of  heaven,  hell,  and  the  sea,  with  all  the 
accompanying  mythological  ornament,  is  a  mere  piece  of 
Alexandrinism,  and  means  absolutely  nothing.  Virgil  had 
before  him  the  precedent  of  Lucretius  invoking  in  Venus  a 
heavenly  power  in  whom  he  did  not  believe,  and  the 
Epicureanism,  which  he  expresses  later  on  in  the  book,  once 
more  shows  that  he  did  not  and  could  not  believe  in 
Augustus'  godhead.     In  fact  the  passage  is  an  experiment, 

^  On  deification  see  Plutarch's  Life  of  Romulus  28 — a  striking  sentence  at  the 
2nd  of  the  discussion  shows  how  philosophic  minds  could  find  it  natural  and 
reasonable. 

*  See  Sellar,   Virgil,  ch.  iii.  p.  217. 


I70  VIRGIL 

which  Virgil  was  content  perhaps  to  have  made,  but  which 
he  never  repeated.  Thereafter,  when  he  praised  Augustus, 
it  was  for  his  real  services  to  mankind,  and  his  praise  is 
sincere  and  not  unworthy  of  our  respect. 

Once  in  the  A enet'al  Virgil  alludes  to  the  deification  of  a 
Caesar,  but  whether  it  is  Julius  or  Augustus  is  disputed 
(i.  286-90).  He  also  compares  Augustus  to  Bacchus  and 
to  Hercules,  both  semi-divine  conquerors  who  attained 
heaven  by  services  to  mankind,^  but  he  does  not  picture 
him,  as  Horace  does,  "  drinking  nectar  with  purple  mouth" 
in  their  company.  The  worship  of  the  Emperor  was  no 
doubt  already  prominent  though  not  so  much  emphasized 
by  the  government  as  it  was  a  generation  or  two  later. 
It  was  Greek  and  Asiatic  rather  than  Roman,  more  fitted 
for  the  Ptolemies  than  the  Julii.  If  Virgil  could  have  been 
questioned  on  his  views  on  the  matter,  he  might  probably 
have  leant  rather  to  some  such  doctrine  as  Cicero  sets  forth 
in  his  Dream  of  Scipio — the  future  rewarding  and  glorifica- 
tion in  a  higher  and  more  divine  region  of  all  who  have 
served  their  country.  Indeed,  if  we  can  draw  any  safe 
inference  from  the  vision  granted  to  Aeneas  in  Hades, 
Augustus  stands  on  essentially  the  same  footing,  and  is 
subjected  to  the  same  conditions,  as  the  other  patriots 
there  revealed — within  and  not  without  the  cycle  of 
recurrent  life.  But  as  a  rule  Augustus'  glories  are  of  this 
world,  and  the  poet  looks  more  to  his  power  to  benefit 
mankind  by  his  human  activity  than  to  any  shadowy 
apotheosis. 

To  sum  up ;  Virgil  was  drawn  to  Augustus  by  personal 
affection,  by  admiration  for  his  character,  and  by  belief  in 

^  Julian  the  apostate  flattered  himself  that  he  was  of  the  order  of  Dionysos 
and  Herakles.  I  do  not  now  go  so  far  as  Vollert  in  construing  this  as  a  claim 
laid  to  actual  deity.  The  whole  question  of  the  deification  of  a  living  emperor, 
or  the  incarnation  in  Julian  or  Augustus  of  some  divine  being,  is  bound  up,  I  now 
see,  with  the  Daemon  theory,  as  set  forth  by  Plutarch  and  Apuleius.  In  view 
of  the  current  belief  in  daemons,  scarcely  distinguishable  from  men's  souls  except 
that  the  latter  for  the  moment  are  possessed  of  bodies,  it  is  quite  easy  to  see  how 
even  a  reasonable  man  could  believe  an  emperor  to  be  an  incarnation  of  some- 
thing divine.  I  may  perhaps  be  allowed  to  refer  the  reader  to  The  Conflict  0/ 
Religions  in  the  Early  Eoman  Empire,  where  daemons  are  discussed  at  some 
length. 


AUGUSTUS  171 

his  power  and  his  will  to  save  Italy  and  the  Empire.  In 
his  earlier  works  he  used  expressions  and  methods,  untrue 
and  unpoetical,  which  he  subsequently  discarded.  If  the 
introduction  of  Augustus  into  the  Acneid  must  be  conceded 
to  be  a  failure  to  achieve  the  highest  poetic  truth,  it  was 
at  least  prompted  b\'  honest  motives,  and  the  attention  of 
the  reader  is  uniformly  called  to  the  really  valid  and  sound 
features  of  the  Emperor's  work  and  character. 


CHAPTER  VIII 


INTERPRETATION  OF  LIFE.— 1.  DIDO 


Strong  and  fierce  in  the  heart,  Dear, 

With — more  than  a  will — what  seems  a  power 

To  pounce  on  my  prey,  love  outbroke  here 
In  flame  devouring  and  to  devour. 

Such  love  has  laboured  its  best  and  worst 

To  win  7Tie  a  lover  ;  yet,  last  as  first, 

I  have  not  quickened  his  pulse  one  beat, 

Fixed  a  moment's  fancy,  bitter  or  sweet : 

Yet  the  strong  fierce  heart's  love's  labour's  due, 

Utterly  lost,  was — you  ! — Browning, 

OVID  tells  us  that  no  part  of  the  Aeneid  was  so 
popular  as  the  episode  of  Dido.^  Though  he  makes 
this  statement  in  self-defence  we  may  well  believe 
him  in  view  of  the  abiding  attraction  of  the  story.  Macrobius 
says  that  for  centuries  painters,  sculptors,  and  workers  in 
embroidery  had  turned  to  Dido,  as  if  it  were  the  only  subject 
in  which  beauty  was  to  be  found,  while  the  very  actors 
had  never  ceased  to  tell  her  sorrows  in  dance  and  song.^ 
Augustine  himself  confesses  that  he  wept  to  read  of  Dido 
and  "how  she  slew  herself  for  love,"  and  he  links  her  story 
with  ipsms  umbra  Creusae^  And  to-day  there  are  still  those 
who  maintain  that  "what  touch  of  human  interest  the  Aeneid 
can  claim  it  gains  from  the  romance  of  Dido."  *  That  Dido 
has  ruined  the  character  of  Aeneas  with  nine-tenths  of  his 
readers  is  the  admission  of  one  of  Virgil's  most  sympathetic 
critics,  who  proceeds  to  ask  the  pertinent  question  whether 
the  poet  failed  to  see  what  his  readers  have  seen,  and 
why,  if  he   saw   it,  he   used    the   story  as  he   did.^     Some 

^  Ovid,  Trisiia,  ii.  533. 

-  Macrobius,  Sat.  v.  17.  5-6  tanqiiam  tinico  arfftiviento  decoris. 

^  Augustine,  Coaf.  i.  13.  21. 

*  Bernard  Bosanquet,  History  of  Aestheik,  p.  88. 

*  J.   R.  Green,  Stray  Studies :  the  essay  on  Aeneas  is  one  of  the  best  treat- 

172 


DIDO  173 

explanation  is  necessary  if  we  are  to  understand  the  Aeneid 
as  a  whole. 

I 

We  need  not  here  discuss  at  lenj^th  the  possibility  of 
Dido  being  another  name  for  the  goddess  known  in  other 
lands  as  Ashtoreth,  Semiramis,  and  Aphrodite,  though  this 
identification  would  give  us  an  attractive  explanation  of 
the  original  connexion  of  the  names  of  Dido  and  Aeneas. 
It  is  enough  at  present  to  refer  to  the  lost  Punic  War  of 
the  old  Roman  poet  Naevius,  a  work  "  as  delightful  as 
Myro's  sculpture."  ^  It  had  appealed  to  Ennius,  it  charmed 
Cicero,  and  Virgil  borrowed  from  it.  So  at  least  Macrobius 
tells  us.  "  In  the  beginning  of  the  Aeneid  a  tempest  is 
described  ;  Venus  complains  to  Jove  of  the  perils  of  her 
son,  and  is  assured  of  the  prosperity  of  his  future.  This 
whole  passage  is  taken  from  Naevius — from  the  first  book 
of  the  Punic  War."  ^  It  is  generally  conjectured  that  the 
poem  went  on  to  tell  of  the  meeting  of  Dido  and  Aeneas 
and  of  the  queen's  unhappy  love. 

If  this  be  so,  we  have  no  longer  to  explain  how  Virgil 
came  to  introduce  Carthage  and  Dido  into  his  story,  for 
they  were  in  the  story  already.  The  question  is  rather 
why  he  retained  the  episode,  for  it  was  not  unchallenged. 
TertuUian,  the  most  brilliant  of  early  Christian  writers, 
was  a  Carthaginian,  and  three  times  over  he  alludes  to 
Dido  having  preferred  the  pyre  to  marriage.^  Macrobius 
says  that  everybody  {iiniversitas)  knew  the  tale  to  be 
false  ;  it  was  well  known  that  Dido  laid  hands  on  herself 
to  save  her  fair  name — though,  he  adds,  every  one  prefers 
the  version  of  Virgil.  The  interpolator  of  Servius  adds 
something   more   disconcerting  still.     He   quotes  Varro   to 

nients  of  the  character  I  have  seen.  I  quote  his  pages  from  the  first  edition, 
1876.  Ci.  also  Warde  Fowler,  Religious  Experience  of  (he  Roman  People 
(1911)  p.  416.  "If  for  us  the  character  of  Aeneas  suffers  by  his  desertion  of 
Dido,  that  is  simply  because  the  poet,  seized  with  intense  pity  for  the  injured 
queen,  seems  for  once,  like  bis  own  hero,  to  have  forgotton  his  mission  in 
the  poem." 

^  Cicero,  Brutus,  19.  75  belluin  Punicuiii  quasi  Myronis  opus  delcctat. 

*  Macrobius,  Saturnalia,  vi.  2.  31. 

*  Apology  50  ;  ad  tiiartyras  4  ;  ad  Nat t,  i.  18. 


174  VIRGIL 

the  effect  that  it  was  Anna,  and  not  Dido,  who  immolated 
herself  for  love  of  Aeneas.^  And  in  the  generation  after 
Virgil,  Velleius  Paterculus  wrote  that  "  sixty-five  years 
before  Rome  was  founded,  the  Tyrian  Elissa,  whom  some 
people  call  Dido,  founded  Carthage."  ^  Thus  here  as  else- 
where Virgil  had  considerable  freedom  of  choice  as  to  the 
turn  he  might  prefer  to  give  to  the  legend. 

If  the  conjecture  as  to  Naevius  be  right,  the  tale  of 
Dido  and  Aeneas  formed  in  his  poem  a  background  to 
the  Punic  war.  But  with  Virgil  it  is  the  other  way ;  the 
historical  is  the  background  of  the  legendary.  He  finds 
legend  and  history  already  linked,  and  he  accepts  them 
in  their  existing  connexion,  but  he  brings  them  into  far 
closer  contact.  Dido  and  Aeneas  formed  a  mere  episode 
in  the  poem  of  Naevius.  The  Punic  war  is  no  episode 
at  all  in  the  Aeneid,  and  yet  it  underlies  the  whole  narrative 
of  the  meeting  and  parting  of  the  founder  of  Rome  and 
the  foundress  of  Carthage.  We  are  not  explicitly  told  of  it, 
but  we  feel  again  and  again,  tingling  and  burning  through 
our  tale  of  love  and  hate,  memories  of  the  conflict  of  the 
two  nations.  If  the  Aeneid  was  to  be  the  epic  of  the 
Roman  people,  as  the  Romans  recognized  it  to  be,  that 
great  struggle  could  not  be  forgotten.  From  the  very 
beginning,  and  before  the  beginning,  Carthage  was  the 
enemy  of  Rome,  and  the  simple  Annals  of  Naevius  gave 
Virgil  his  opportunity  for  a  more  splendid  and  imaginative 
treatment  of  that  rivalry,  on  the  issue  to  which  had  turned 
the  destiny  of  his  people. 

For  it  is  in  virtue  of  the  imaginative  element  that  the 
old    fable  rises  into  poetry.     Without  it,  however  quaint  it 

1  Ileinze,  Virgils  epische  Technik,  p.  113,  n.  i,  suggests  that  it  may  be  merely 
a  conjecture  of  Varro's  to  reconcile  the  discrepant  stories  of  Dido. 

*  Macr.  Sat.  v.  16.  6  ;  Servius,  ad  Aen.  iv.  682  ;  Veil.  Pat.  i.  6.  The  cool 
phrase  quam  quidam  Dido  autumant  may  explain  the  remarkable  judgement  of 
Velleius,  who  coupled  Virgil  with  Rabirius,  the  author  of  a  historical  poem  on  the 
downfall  of  Antony.  Ovid,  ex  Ponto  iv.  16,  5,  calls  him  magni  Rabirius  oris; 
and  Quintilian  x.  i.  90  classes  him  with  Pedo  as  non  indigni  cogjiitione,  si  vacet 
— a  discouraging  qualification.  It  is  thought  that  some  67  hexameters  on  the 
Egyptian  war,  found  in  a  papyrus  roll  at  Herculaneum,  may  belong  to  the  epic 
of  Rabirius — they  are  the  work  of  "  a  moderately  gifted  poet."  Schanz,  Rom. 
Lit.  §  316. 


DIDO  175 

might  be,  it  would  be  foolish,  an  impertinence  in  a  serious 
work.  But  the  poet  transforms  his  hero  and  heroine  into 
representatives,  each  embodying  and  expressing  the  genius 
of  a  race.  The  Punic  wars  are  now  no  longer  the  result  of 
hatred  accidentall)'  produced,  but  the  inevitable  outcome 
of  the  clash  of  two  national  tempers.  Historically,  Rome 
and  Carthage  fought  for  Sicily  and  the  command  of  the 
sea— a  struggle  of  greed  with  greed,  some  might  say,  but 
that  is  an  inadequate  way  of  judging  history.  Rather  it 
is  that  the  nations,  seeking  the  realization  and  fulfilment 
of  the  life  within  them,  came  into  conflict  inevitably,^  and 
brought  into  it  so  many  armies  and  fleets,  no  doubt,  but 
also  ideas  and  principles.  Providence,  we  have  heard,  is  on 
the  side  of  the  biggest  battalions,  and  perhaps  it  is  true; 
for  the  biggest  battalions  naturally  gravitate  to  the  side  of 
the  larger  ideals.  In  the  Punic  wars  these  were  unques- 
tionably on  the  Roman  side.  Two  great  types  of  national 
thinking  are  in  conflict — the  Oriental  and  the  Western 
character  meet,  and  bring  with  them  all  that  they  imply, 
ideals  of  state  and  government,  of  citizenship,  of  law  and 
thought.  And  when  Virgil  draws  us  Aeneas  and  Dido  he 
gives  us  back  this  identical  conflict. 

But  beside  the  main  issue  there  enter  into  every  great 
struggle  other  issues,  which  complicate  it  and  make  decision 
difficult,  and  men  from  right  motives  take  the  wrong  side. 
It  is  this  confusion  of  issues  that  lies  at  the  heart  of  all 
Tragedy, — the  conflict  of  good  with  good,  the  division  of  the 
spirit  against  itself^  Put  the  question  as  directly  as  man 
can,  the  answer  will  never  be  a  plain  Yes  or  No.  But  if  the 
case  is  brought  before  us,  not  on  the  large  and  more 
nearly  abstract  scale,  where  nations  are  involved,  but  on  a 
smaller  stage,  where  the  representatives  of  the  ideas  in 
conflict  are  individual  men  and  women  ;  if  the  principles 
they  maintain  are  entangled  in  all  the  reactions  of  personality 
upon  personality,  and  we  have  to  hold   firmly  to  the  thread, 

*  This  adverb  is  open  to  criticism,  but  I  think  the  conflict  of  Rome  and 
Carthage,  in  view  of  the  position  of  things  in  the  Mediterranean  and  the 
commercial  theories  of  the  age,  was  inevitable. 

*  See  Mr  A.  C.  Bradley  on  Hegel's  ibeury  of  Tragedy,  in  his  Oxford  Lectures 
on  Poetry,  an  essay  to  which  I  owe  a  great  deal. 


176  VIRGIL 

which  study  of  the  final  issue  alone  can  give  us,  and  to 
disregard  for  the  while  every  appeal  of  sympathy  and 
instinct,  the  task  of  judgement  is  immeasurably  more 
difficult. 

For  us  to-day  the  issue  between  Carthage  and  Rome  is 
so  far  away  as  to  be  relatively  simple.  If  the  poet  chose 
to  present  it  to  us  in  a  purely  symbolic  form,  we  might 
decide  it  easily,  but  we  might  not  be  greatly  interested  in 
it.  If  Dido  and  Aeneas  were  merely  figures  in  an  allegory, 
probably  no  one  would  ever  have  wept  over  Dido 

extinctam  ferroque  extrema  secutam.  ^ 

"Abstract  Ideas,"  says  Carlyle,  "however  they  may  put  on 
fleshly  garments,  are  a  class  of  character  whom  we  cannot 
sympathize  with  or  delight  in."  ^  We  must  have  flesh  and 
blood  if  we  are  to  be  moved  as  well  as  interested.  Let  hero 
and  heroine  represent  types  of  national  character,  but  they 
must  still  be  individual,  personal,  human.  Then  the  poet 
will  touch  us  indeed,  for  in  the  persons  of  two  creatures  of 
our  own  nature  he  will  let  us  see  the  same  sort  of  warfare  as 
too  often  occupies  ourselves  to  this  day,  dividing  brother 
from  brother,  and  wrenching  the  same  heart  asunder,  as  love 
and  duty  pull  different  ways.  If  there  is  anything  gained 
by  using  more  technical  language,  the  poet  must  show  us  the 
universal  in  the  particular. 

Virgil  took  his  theme  from  Naevius,  if  we  are  right  in 
following  conjecture.  But  in  all  probability  his  treatment 
of  it  was  very  different,  for  he  had  other  models  beside  the 
old  annalist.  He  had  before  him  the  tragic  poets  of  the 
great  age  of  Greece,  and  the  Alexandrines,  his  own  earlier 
allegiance, — in  particular  Euripides  and  ApoUonius,  both  of 
whom  it  is  clear  that  he  studied  with  care  and  affection. 
Greek  tragedy  had  delighted  to  show  the  conflict  of  character 
with  character,  and  from  the  first  had  depicted  with 
sympathy  the  play  of  passion  and  principle  upon  feminine 
nature.  But  when  we  come  to  Euripides  we  find  that  a 
great  many  of  his  plays  deal  with  woman  primarily,  and  only 
secondarily  with  man.     Hecuba,  Andromache,  and  Alcestis 

1  See  p.  56,  n.  4.  2  E^say  on  Werner. 


DIDO  177 

are  pictures  of  woman  as  wife  and  mother,  but  the  poet  did 
not  stop  there.  In  Phaedra  an  altogether  new  note  in 
poetry  is  struck,  for  one  of  the  main  motives  of  the  Hippolytus 
is  the  struggle  of  the  heroine  to  resist  passion.  Love  has 
been  added  to  the  domain  of  poetry,  never  to  be  lost  again. 
Euripides  was  essentially  a  pioneer  ;  and  those  who  followed 
him  into  this  region  were  many,  especially  when,  by  the 
Macedonian  conquest  of  the  world,  the  thoughts  of  men  were 
turned  from  the  state  to  the  individual. 

The  love-tale  in  one  form  or  other  is  one  of  the  main 
constituents  of  Alexandrine  poetry,  sometimes  overlaid 
with  masses  of  irrelevant  learning  and  cleverness,  some- 
times, though  less  often,  clear  of  all  irrelevance,  strong, 
direct,  and  true,  as  in  Theocritus'  Simaetha.^  From 
Euripides  and  the  Alexandrines  the  love  motive  found  its 
way  into  Latin  poetry,  and  in  Virgil's  day  it  had  perhaps 
more  vogue  than  ever  before  or  after  in  the  history  of  Latin 
literature. 

Parthenius,  for  example,  the  teacher  of  Virgil,  made  a 
handbook  of  love-tales  for  another  pupil,  Gallus  ;  and 
however  little  or  much  influence  Parthenius  may  have  had 
on  Virgil,  Virgil  was  closely  connected  with  Gallus  and  read 
his  poetry,  if  indeed  the  two  young  poets  had  not  for  a  while 
a  sort  of  literary  partnership.^  He  also  steeped  himself  in 
Catullus,  whose  story  of  Ariadne  deserted  by  Theseus,  and 
whose  Attis  he  must  have  read  with  care.  Ovid's  Letters  of 
the  Heroines  published  perhaps  a  few  years  after  Virgil's 
death,  are  an  indication  of  the  taste  of  the  period  before  and 
after  their  appearance,  a  proof  of  the  absorbing  interest  in 
pictures  of  passion, 

Virgil  was  too  closely  in  touch  with  the  great  literature  of 
the  past  and  with  the  life  of  his  time  not  to  feel  the  attrac- 
tion of  this  particular  study  of  human  nature.  It  was 
essentially  cognate  to  his  peculiar  gift  of  tenderness  and 
sympathy,  and  we  can  almost  trace  the  growth  of  his  interest 

^  Erwin  Rohde  in  his  book,  Dcr  ip-iechischc  Roman,  has  given  a  comprehen- 
sive and  minute  survey  of  the  Alexandrine  literature  concerned  with  love. 
See  Part  i. 

*  See  the  interesting  essay  of  Mr  J.  W.  Mackail  on  the  Virgilian  circle  in  his 
Lectures  on  Poetry. 


178  VIRGIL 

in  it.  But  perhaps  nowhere  can  the  sanity  of  Virgil's  genius 
be  more  clearly  remarked  than  here.  Nothing  will  seduce 
him  from  the  universal.  The  peculiar,  the  exaggerated, 
the  pathological  case  alike  repel  him.  The  unbalanced  and 
abnormal  mind  shocks  and  disgusts  him,  and  he  will  not 
waste  his  mind  upon  it.  He  may  use  it  at  times  as  a  foil, 
but  no  words  are  needed  to  show  his  entire  acceptance  of 
the  words  of  Catullus  at  the  end  of  the  Attis — 

Procul  a  mea  tuos  sit  furor  omnis,  era,  domo ; 
alios  age  incitatos,  alios  age  rabidos.^ 

Every  line  he  writes  is  a  tacit  protest. 

The  lovers  in  the  Eclogues  are  delightful  and  amiable 
young  men,  but  we  hardly  think  that  they  are  really  very 
much  in  love.  When  we  come  to  the  story  of  Orpheus  we 
are  tempted  to  believe  that  we  have  a  more  serious  record  of 
human  experience,  and  yet  a  closer  study  of  metre  and 
language  raises  a  doubt,  which  it  is  hard  to  lay.  All  is  so 
stately,  so  musical,  so  picturesque.  Take  the  very  central 
words  of  the  story,  Eurydice's  farewell — 

Ilia  "  quis  et  me  "  inquit  "  miseram  et  te  perdidit,  Orpheu, 
quis  tantus  furor }  en  iterum  crudelia  retro 
fata  vocant,  conditque  natantia  lumina  somnus. 
lamque  vale  :  feror  ingenti  circumdata  nocte 
invalidasque  tibi  tendens,  heu  non  tua,  palmas  "  ^ 

{G.  iv.494). 

The  passage  is  beautiful,  but  does  not  its  structure  suggest 
meditation  rather  than  emotion,  painting  rather  than  expe- 
rience ?  The  first  sentence  with  its  double  quis  and  its 
tantiis\  the  third  with  its  rare  and  sleepy  rhythm,  far  more 
effectively  used  elsewhere  to  describe  in  the  third  person 
sleep  overcoming  Palinurus  ;  ^  are  they  not  a  little  studied  ? 
But  the  last  sentence  is  surely  conclusive.  Five  thoughts 
clustering  about  one  verb,  and  above  all  the  parenthesis  heu 
non  tua,    speak   only  too  clearly  of  the   distance   between 

1  "Far  from  my  house  by  all  thy  madness,  goddess  ;  others  drive  thou  head- 
long, other  drive  in  frenzy." 

2  For  translation  see  p.  38. 

^  A.v.  856  ciinct antique  natantia  liimina  solvit. 


DIDO  179 

utterance  and  realization.  Emotion  does  not  express 
itself  in  periods  so  involved,  least  of  all  in  the  moment 
of  suffering. 

Do  you  see  this  ?     Look  on  her,  look,  her  lips, 
Look  there,  look  there  ! 

So  cries  the  dying  Lear.  There  is  a  moving  simplicity 
in  those  lines  of  quiet  despair  which  Catullus  wrote  at  his 
brother's  grave,  in  such  passages  as  the  address  of  Mezentius 
to  his  horse  ^  and  his  dying  request  to  Aeneas,^  which  speaks 
straight  from  the  heart  to  the  heart.  The  sentences  are 
short,  direct,  and  rapid  ;  they  do  not  suggest  skill ;  but  they 
throb  with  feeling  and  truth. 

In  short,  the  story  of  Orpheus  and  Eurydice  is  not  a 
genuine  transcript  of  passion,  nor  an  imaginative  present- 
ment of  it.^  It  is  more  like  a  masque  of  the  Triumph  of  Music. 
Its  nearest  analogue  is  the  Ariadne  of  Catullus,  which  also  is 
somewhat  disconnectedly  set  in  the  middle  of  another  poem. 
But  when  we  reach  Dido  we  come  into  touch  with  the  most 
serious  mind  of  the  poet.  Here  is  real  passion,  drawn  with  all 
the  power  and  truth  that  the  poet  could  put  into  his  work. 

II 

One  preliminary  question  has  to  be  asked  before  we 
begin  to  study  the  tragedy  of  Dido,  for  here,  as  in  the 
Hippolytus,  we  have  a  prologue,  but  a  more  difficult  one. 
Whatever  we  make  of  Aphrodite  in  the  play  of  Euripides, 
whether  we  suppose  the  poet  to  be  directing  a  covert  and 
ingenious  attack  on  the  Olympian  gods,*  or  hold  that  he 
is  figuring  "a  force  of  Nature  or  a  Spirit  working  in  the 

^  A,  X.  861  Rhaebe,  din,  res  si  qua  diu  viortalibiis  tilla  est,  \  vixiiinis, 

*  A.  X.  900-6. 

^  After  eight  or  ten  years  I  let  the  passage  stand  as  I  wrote  it,  but  while  I  do 
so,  I  should  like  to  suggest  that  what  my  words  might  seem  to  deny  is  also  true — 
that  with  the  art  there  is  still  feeling  in  the  passage  of  the  fourth  Georgic.  None 
the  less  the  fourth  Aeneid  stands  on  a  far  higher  plane  of  truth  to  feeling. 

*  "Serait-il  temeraire  de  pretendre  qu'Euripide,  qui,  tout  en  usant,  comma 
poete,  des  croyances  de  sa  patrie  et  de  son  temps,  ne  s'interdisait  pas  de 
t^moigner  qu'elles  repugnaient  a  sa  raison,  a  voulu,  lorsqu'il  les  a  ainsi 
presentees  aux  regards  dans  toute  leur  nudit^,  protester  indirectement  contre 
elles  ?  "     Patin,  Eun'pide,  i.  p.  44. 


i8o  VIRGIL 

world,"  1  a  fact  real  enough,  however  hateful — whatever 
our  conclusion  about  her,  the  language  and  the  purpose 
of  the  goddess  are  alike  clear.  She  announces  her  intention 
to  punish  Hippolytus  for  his  neglect  of  her,  and  to  use 
Phaedra  as  her  instrument.  She  quite  well  realizes  that 
this  will  mean  Phaedra's  undoing,  but  she  does  not  care.^ 

Seeing  he  hath  offended,  I  this  day- 
Shall  smite  Hippolytus  .  .  . 
And  she,  not  in  dishonour,  yet  shall  die. 
I  would  not  rate  this  woman's  pain  so  high 
As  not  to  pay  mine  haters  in  full  fee 
That  vengeance  that  shall  make  all  well  with  me. 

Virgil's  prologue,  if  the  word  may  be  used,  is  in  two 
parts.  We  have  in  the  first  book  the  interview  of  Venus 
and  Cupid,  and  the  later  dialogue  of  Venus  and  Juno  in 
the  fourth  book. 

As  a  result  of  Juno's  storm,  Aeneas  has  been  driven 
ashore  close  to  the  town,  which  of  all  places  was  to  be 
most  hostile  to  him  and  his  race.  His  mother  in  alarm 
intercedes  with  Jupiter,  and  Mercury  is  sent  to  soften  the 
hearts  of  the  Carthaginians — especially  the  queen's — 
towards  the  newcomers.^  Accordingly  when  Dido  and 
Aeneas  meet,  it  is  in  perfect  amity  and  courtesy.  But 
Venus  is  not  yet  at  ease.  She  does  not  like  the  double- 
tongued  Tyrians ;  and  the  thought  comes  to  her  again 
and  again  that  her  son  is  in  the  very  stronghold  of  the 
foe,  and  practically  at  the  mercy  of  Juno.  She  resolves 
to  storm  the  enemy's  citadel,  and  to  detach  Dido  from  the 
schemes  and  influence  of  her  patron-goddess  by  making 
her  fall  in  love  with  Aeneas.  Then,  at  least.  Dido  will 
do  him  no  harm,  and  he  will  come  away  safely.  Dido's 
fame  or  feelings  she  does  not  consider.     She  is  only  afraid 

^  Mr  Murray  in  notes  to  his  translation,  which  I  quote  in  the  text. 

2  "A  5'  els  ifi'  i]/j.dpTrjKe,  rifjuopriao/JLaL 
'iTTTroKvTov  iv  rfid'  yj/xepa'  (2l) 

fj  5'  €VK\er]s  p.€v,  dXX'  S/j-ws  dfrdWvTai, 
^aidpa-   TO  yap  rrjad'  oii  irpoTL^rjffU}  ko-kov 
rb  pLT]  oi)  irapacrxe^v  Toi/s  e/xoi/s  ixdpovs  e/xol 
diariv  TOffavTTiv  u(Jt'  €/jloI  koKGis  ix^iv  (47-50). 

3  A.  i.  297. 


DIDO  i8i 

of  treachery,  and,  once  secure  against  that,  she  thinks  nc 
more  of  Dido  than  Aphrodite  does  of  Phaedra  in  the 
Hippolytus.  Whether  she  means  that  the  passion,  which 
she  intends  to  wake,  should  culminate  as  it  does,  or  remain 
concealed,  as  Phaedra  would  have  kept  hers,  Venus  does 
not  say,  nor,  very  probably,  does  she  greatly  care.^ 

When  we  next  overhear  the  discussions  of  the  gods 
things  have  advanced  materially.^  Venus  has  successfully 
out-manceuvred  Juno,  and  Juno  has  realized  it  and  is  now 
concerned  to  make  the  most  of  the  present  position.  She 
scornfully  congratulates  Venus  on  trapping  Dido — she 
understands  the  motive  perfectly — but  how  long  is  the 
struggle  between  them  to  continue  ?  why  not  end  it  by 
marrying  their  favourites  ?  Venus  instantly  sees  the  design 
— if  Aeneas  cannot  be  destroyed  by  storm  at  sea  or  by 
Tyrian  ashore,  he  can  be  kept  an  unconscious  prisoner 
at  Carthage,  and  Rome  will  not  be  founded.  Accordingly 
she  answers  Juno  in  the  most  conciliatory  way.  Who 
would  wish  to  engage  in  a  quarrel  with  the  queen  of 
Jove  .''  She  herself  is  not  quite  sure,  she  hints,  whether 
destiny  will  permit  the  fusion  of  Trojans  and  Tyrians  in 
one  city — but  Jove's  wife  should  be  able  to  learn  this 
from  Jove.  Juno,  in  reply,  undertakes  to  do  all  that  is 
needed.  She  will  manage  the  union  of  Dido  and  Aeneas, 
and,  if  Venus  agrees,  it  shall  be  marriage.  Venus  says 
no  more.  She  only  laughs,  for  she  knows  the  intentions 
of  destiny  better  than  Juno  does,  and  she  sees  that  her 
enemy's  new  move  will  be  ineffectual.  There  will  be  no 
marriage,  nothing  but  a  temporary  union,  to  be  ended 
in  due  time,     Rome  is  secure  and  Juno  is  outwitted. 

This  then  is  the  "  prologue."  The  whole  question  of  the 
part  and  place  of  the  gods  in  the  Aeneid  must  for  the  present 
be  reserved.  But  it  should  be  noted  that  here,  as  in  the 
Hippolytus,  the  intervention  of  Venus  effects  nothing  that 
could  not  have  occurred  independently  of  it.  "  It  is  to  the 
heart  of  man  that  the  dramatic  struggle  is  transported ;  the 
actors  are  our  faculties  themselves ;  the  subject  of  the  piece 
is  that  inward    war   of  sensibility   and    reason,  old    as   our 

^  A.  i.  657-694.  *  A.  iv.  90,  f. 


1 82  VIRGIL 

nature,  and  as  eternal."  So  writes  M.  Patin  of  the  dramas 
of  Euripides,!  and  it  is  true  of  Virgil's  tragedy. 

'Hi/  ov/uo?  viog  KaX\o9  eKTrperrecTTaTO?, 
6  cro?  c)'  iSoov  VLV  vov^  eTron'iOr]  IvvTvpi?, 

said  Hecuba  to  Helen.^  Could  not  Venus  say  the  same^ 
and  say  it  justly,  to  Dido?  If  Aeneas  was  not  beautiful  as 
Paris  was,  he  had  his  appeal  to  Dido's  heart,  and  that  heart, 
confronted  by  that  appeal,  was  Venus  enough.  In  fact,  the 
parallel  with  the  Hippolytus  holds,  and  we  may  for  the 
purposes  of  our  present  study  disregard  the  action  of  the 
gods,  without  deciding  at  once  whether  or  not  they  are  after 
all  mere  epic  machinery.  Here,  as  throughout  the  Aeneid, 
they  really  contribute  little  but  their  names  to  forces  already 
at  work. 

Ill 

In  studying  this  tragedy  of  Aeneas  and  Dido,  the  first 
thing  to  be  done  is  to  realize  Virgil's  conception  of  the 
central  figure,  and  this  is  of  course  Dido.  She  is  at  once 
a  woman  and  a  queen,  a  woman  in  the  large  and  ample 
sense,  in  instinct,  feeling,  and  sympathy,  and  a  queen  in  her 
ideas  and  her  achievements. 

Dido  is  a  woman.  Calypso  in  Homer  is  a  goddess. 
Medea  in  Apollonius  is  a  girl,  even  if  a  magician  and  a 
princess.^  Catullus'  Ariadne  is  little  more  than  a  child. 
Dido  has  been  a  wife  and  is  a  widow. 

She  has  a  woman's  eye  for  the  stature  and  the  carriage  of  :j 

the  hero  * — 

quem  sese  ore  ferens,  quam  forti  pectore  et  armis  {A.  iv.  1 1). 

^  Eschyle,  p.  47. 
^   Troades,  9S7 — 

"  My  son  was  passing  beautiful,  beyond 
His  peers  ;  and  thine  own  heart,  that  saw  and  conned 
His  face,  became  a  spirit  enchanting  thee  "  (Murray). 
^  On  Medea,   see   Girard,    Etudes  sur  la  poisie  grecque,  p.   331,   who  calls 
attention  to  the  startling  contrasts  in  her  character  as  presented  by  Apollonius  ; 
Sainte-Beuve,  De  la  Mt'd^e  d^Ap.  in  Rev.  des  deux  Mondes,  1845,  vol.  xi. 

*  ' '  What  a  face  and  carriage !  what  strength  of  breast  and  shoulders " 
(Conington).  For  the  appeal  of  physical  beauty  a  parallel  may  be  quoted  in  the 
case  of  Euryalus — gratior  et pitlchro  venietts  in  corpofe  virtus  {A.  v.  344). 


DIDO  183 

For  Aeneas,  we  are  told,  is  like  a  god  in  countenance  and 
shoulders, 

OS  humerosque  deo  similis  (A.  i.  589). 

When  Charon  takes  Aeneas  into  his  craft,  the  size  of  the 
hero  is  emphasized  in  contrast  to  the  craziness  of  the  boat 
(A.  vi.  413).  But  more  striking  is  an  allusion  in  the  tenth 
book.  It  is  a  battle-scene.  Aeneas  pursues  a  foe,  who 
stumbles  in  his  flight.  One  moment  of  consciousness  is 
left  him,  and  he  realizes  a  great  shadow  falling  across  him, 
and  instantly  he  dies  by  the  hand  of  Aeneas.^ 

Perhaps  in  this  connexion  it  may  be  permissible  to  find 
a  feminine  trait  in  Dido's  pleasure  in  the  gifts  which  Aeneas 
brings  her — the  mantle  of  gold  embroidery,  the  veil,  the 
beaded  necklace,  and  the  circlet  of  gold, 

.Dido  has  imagination.  She  can  understand  this  great, 
tall,  and  rather  melancholy  hero  better  than  many  of  his 
readers  have  done. 

My  story  being  done, 
She  gave  me  for  my  pains  a  world  of  sighs : 
She  lov'd  me  for  the  dangers  I  had  pass'd. 

To  this  Dido  was  helped  by  her  own  story. 

Non  ignara  mali  miseris  succurrere  disco  ^  (A.  i.  630). 

For,  in  many  particulars,  the  experience  of  both  has  been 
the  same.  She  has  left  a  lost  husband,  as  he  a  lost  wife,  in 
a  native  land  never  to  be  seen  again.  She  has  been  "  tossed 
by  the  fates,"  and  the  wars  of  Africa, 

terra  triumphis 
dives  (A.  iv.  t,";), 

*  Quern  C07igressus  agit  campo,  lapsumque  superstans 

immolat,  ingentique  umbra  tegit  {A.  x.  540). 

The  Times  reviewer  (16  December  1904)  suggests  that  this  is  letting  "literary 
instinct  take  the  bit  in  its  teeth,"  adding  that  "such  over-subtle  interpretation 
as  this  is  to  be  deprecated  with  any  great  artist."  He  may  very  well  be  right, 
but  I  leave  the  passage  and  quote  the  criticism — not  the  only  one  which  I  have 
found  of  value  to  me  in  the  review — and  suggest  that  the  reader  decides  the 
point  for  himself. 

^  "  Full  well  I  know  evil  and  learn  to  succour  the  unhappy." 


1 84  VIRGIL 

have  taught  her  what  the  long  Trojan  war  meant.  She  too 
has  sought  a  city.  She  has  ruled,  and  she  knows  instinctively 
the  ruler  of  men. 

She  loves  children.  If  she  takes  Ascanius  to  her  heart, 
taken  by  his  likeness  to  his  father — 

genitoris  imagine  capta  (A.  iv.  84), 

it  is  hardly  too  much  to  say  that  the  child  helped  to  win 
her  for  the  father.  The  elaborate  substitution  of  Cupid  is 
really  needless.  Even  before  the  god  in  disguise  begins 
his  work  we  are  told  that  she  is  moved  alike  by  the  child 
and  by  the  gifts  — 

pariter  puero  donisque  movetur  {A.  i.  714). 

She  watches  the  boy  with  eyes  and  heart  open,  and  takes 
him  to  her  bosom — 

Haec  oculis,  haec  pectore  toto 
haeret  et  interdum  gremio  fovet  {A.  i.  717). 

But  she  is  herself  childless,  and  she  feels  it.  When  she 
learns  of  the  Trojan  preparations  to  sail,  and  challenges 
Aeneas  with  them,  before  his  coldness  wakes  her  rage,  the 
last  cry  from  her  heart  is  that  of  the  childless  woman.  Had 
she  only  a  little  Aeneas  to  play  in  her  hall,  to  recall  his 
look !     Aeneas  has  a  child,  she  has  none.^ 

Saltem  siqua  mihi  de  te  suscepta  fuisset 

ante  fugam  suboles,  si  quis  mihi  parvulus  aula 

luderet  Aeneas,  qui  te  tamen  ore  referret 

non  equidem  omnino  capta  ac  deserta  viderer^  (A.  iv.  327). 

She  is  childless  and  a  widow — and  what  a  story  she  has 
to  remember !     It  is  the  marring  of  her  life.     In  the  back- 

^  Queen  Elizabeth  is  reported  to  have  exclaimed,  on  hearing  of  the  birth  of  the 
child,  afterwards  James  I  :  "  The  Queen  of  Scots  is  the  mother  of  a  fair  son,  and 
I  am  a  barren  stock."  The  diminutive  parvulus  should  be  remarked.  It  is,  I 
think,  the  only  one  in  Virgil's  works — the  only  deliberate  diminutive,  in  which 
the  form  has  its  force  ;  and  it  is  very  significant. 

^  "Had  I  but  borne  any  offspring  of  you  before  your  flight,  were  there  but 
some  tiny  Aeneas  to  play  in  my  hall,  and  remind  me  of  you,  though  but  in  look, 
I  should  not  then  feel  utterly  captive  and  forlorn  "  (Conington). 


DIDO  185 

ground  of  all  her  thoughts  is  the  murder  of  her  husband, 
Sychaeus,  by  Pygmalion,  her  brother.  Heedless  of  her 
love  in  his  greed  of  power  and  gold,  he  made  his  sister  a 
widow.  This  may  have  been  the  legend,  but  the  poet 
divined  what  it  meant  to  a  sensitive  being — the  crushing 
of  natural  instincts  ;  a  wound  dealt  to  the  spirit,  where  it 
would  be  most  felt ;  the  killing  of  human  love.  Virgil's 
methods  are  not  Hawthorne's,  or  he  might  have  analysed 
the  effects  of  such  a  blow  upon  character  and  nature,  in 
the  disordering  of  the  natural  courses  of  feeling,  the 
accentuation  of  tendencies  to  extravagance  and  hysteria, 
the  pathological  susceptibility  to  be  overcome  by  passion 
and  emotion.  These  features  of  her  disposition  are  not 
set  out  and  catalogued,  but  they  are  there,  and  they  make 
themselves  felt  in  the  progress  of  the  story. 

Dido  is  a  queen,  and  a  great  queen.  Without  going  into 
the  ancient  history  of  the  word,  the  Romans  of  Virgil's 
day  had  learnt  in  Egypt  the  meaning  of  regina?-  It  has 
been  suggested  that  Dido  has  been  drawn  from  Cleopatra, 
but  this  is  absurd,  though  Virgil  may  well  have  borrowed 
suggestion.  He  is  not  writing  a  historical  epic,  and  he 
looks  beyond  the  actual.  Still,  Cleopatra  had  revealed  one 
side  of  feminine  nature  to  the  Romans,  which,  in  spite  of 
Clytaemnestra,  antiquity  had  not  known.  Medea  in  Euri- 
pides is  an  injured  and  angry  wife ;  Deianira  is  injured 
and  forgiving.  In  Phaedra  the  queen,  a  queen-consort  at 
most,  is  sunk  in  the  woman.  Ariadne  is  a  forsaken  girl. 
But  Dido  is  a  queen  and  always  a  queen.  Her  greatness 
and  her  fall  hang  together.  The  key-note  is  to  be  caught 
throughout — 

dux  femina  facti  ^  {^A.  i.  364). 

Her  magnificence  is  a  queen's — 

urbem  quam  statuo  vestra  est^  {A.  i.  573). 

The  dowry  she  brings  to  Aeneas  is   a  people,  an  empire ; 

*  A.    viii.    696  regina   in  mediis  patrio  vocat   agviina  sistro  ;  Horace,   Odes, 
i.  37. 

*  The  Englishman  in  Elizabeth's  reign  saw  the  meaning  of  this  phrase. 
^  "The  city  I  found — is  yours." 


1 86  VIRGIL 

the  sneer  may  be  Juno's,  the  generous  act  is  Dido's.^  And 
when  she  dies,  she  dies  a  queen  and  the  founder  of  a 
nation ;  ^  and  in  Hades  itself  she  retains  her  queenly 
dignity.^ 

IV 

One  of  the  most  obviously  impossible  things  to  explain  is 
why  any  two  people  fall  in  love  with  each  other ;  and  even 
if  in  the  case  of  Dido  and  Aeneas  we  refer  to  the  plotting  of 
rival  goddesses  we  are  not  much  enlightened.  Dido's  love 
began  in  sympathy  for  one  whose  lot  had  been  so  like  her 
own.  It  was  helped  forward  by  her  fondness  for  his  child. 
His  story,  we  are  told  and  we  can  well  believe  it,  was  not 
without  its  effect ;  and  in  the  imperceptible  way  in  which 
these  things  happen  the  queen  fell  in  love  with  her  guest. 

From  the  first  we  can  see  it  will  go  ill  with  her. 
Despite  their  splendour  and  charm,  those  gifts,  which 
Aeneas  has  brought  from  the  ships,  are  not  all  of  happy 
omen.  The  robe  of  stiff  gold  embroidery  and  the  veil  had 
been  Leda's  once,  and  then  Helen's — 

Ornatus  Argivae  Helenae,  quos  ilia  Mycenis 
Pergama  cum  peteret  inconcessosque  hymenaeos 
extulerat^  {A.  i.  650). 

Their  story  was  not  a  good  one.  They  came  from  a 
family  of  bad  women.^  They  had  already  seen  broken 
wedlock  and  all  the  ruin  and  suffering  it  brought.  The 
later  gift  of  the  sword  was  scarcely  happier.^ 

^  A.  iv.  loi — 

Communem  htinc  ergo  popuhim  paribusque  regainus 
auspiciis  ;  liceat  Phrygio  so-vire  marito 
dotalisque  time  Tyrios  po-miiiere  dextrae. 
2  A.  iv.  653— 

Vixi  et  quern  dederat  cur  sum  fortuna  peregi, 
et  nu7ic  magna  niei  sub  terras  ibit  imago : 
urbem  praeclaram  siattii,  mea  moenia  vidi. 
'  A.  vi.  450-474. 

*  "  Adornments  of  Argive  Helen,  which  she  carried  away  from  Mycenae,  when 
she  went  to  Troy  and  to  her  unblest  bridal." 

^  Cf.  Dr.  Verrall's  note  on  Agamemnon's  address  to  Clytaemnestra  (Helen's 
sister)  beginning  Aij'Sas  yive9\op,  Aesch.  Ag.  914. 

*  A.  iv.  647.  The  still  surviving  superstition  on  giving  knives  may  be 
compared — "  knives,"  we  are  told,  "  cut  love." 


DIDO  187 

Dido's  love,  moreover,  has  from  the  first  the  promise 
of  misery  in  itself  It  is  too  fierce  and  passionate,  over- 
mastering her  like  the  madness  of  Attis.  She  can  know 
no  rest,  for  the  new  passion  is  battling  with  an  old  pre- 
possession. 

She  complains  to  her  sister  Anna  that  she  is  haunted 
by  dreams.  Dr  Henry  suggests  that  they  are  visions  of  her 
husband  Sychaeus,  in  view  of  Anna's  pointed  allusion  to  the 
Manes  of  the  dead.^  It  will  be  remembered  that  dreams  of 
Sychaeus  had  influenced  her  before  in  her  flight  from  Tyre.^ 

She  has  bad  dreams,  and  yet — who  is  this  strange  guest  ? 
What  a  man  he  is !  What  a  countenance  he  has  and  what 
a  frame !  No  doubt,  a  child  of  gods.  And  what  a  life  he 
has  lived !  All  this  hints  at  passion,  and  the  hint  is 
immediately  confirmed  by  her  reference  to  her  long-fixed 
resolve  never  again  to  marry.  But  for  that,  she  *'  might 
have  yielded  to  this  one  reproach.  Anna — for  I  will  own 
the  truth — since  the  fate  of  Sychaeus,  my  hapless  husband, 
he  and  he  alone  has  touched  my  heart,  and  shaken  my 
resolve  till  it  totters.  I  recognize  the  traces  of  the  flame 
I  knew  of  old."  The  truth  is  out,  and  she  realizes  that 
there  has  been  a  weakening  in  her  purpose.  And  here 
the  poet  is  true  to  experience,  for  she  instantly  fortifies 
her  wavering  resolution  with  a  curse,  an  appeal  to  her 
honour  {pudor),  and  an  invocation  of  her  old  love — and 
bursts  into  tears. 

It  is  now  that  Anna  comes  into  the  story.  The  sister 
of  the  heroine  is  a  familiar  figure  in  Greek  tragedy. 
Ismene,  in  the  play  of  Sophocles,  takes  a  lower  and  less 
reflective  view  of  duty  than  Antigone,  and  is  quite  unable 
to  grasp  what  it  is  that  moves  her  sister  to  action.  So 
here  Anna  represents  a  more  commonplace  type  of  mind. 
She  is  shrewd  enough.  Probably  long  before  Dido  got 
so  far  as  Anna  fatebor  enim  Anna  had  summed  up  the 
situation,  and  by  the  time  the  curse  and  the  tears  ended 
the  speech  she  knew  quite  well  what  her  own  line  would 
be.  Anna  is  a  woman  of  the  common-sense  school,  not 
at  all  of  an  imaginative  habit.  To  prove  this,  it  is  only 
^  Henry,  Aeneidea,  ii.  p.  558,  on  A.  iv.  9.  *  A.  i.  353. 


1 88  VIRGIL 

necessary  to  anticipate  by  a  little  the  moment  when  Dido 
has  resolved  to  kill  herself.  Of  such  an  outcome  Anna 
never  dreams  for  an  instant — 

nee  tantos  mente  furores 
concipit  aut  graviora  timet  quam  morte  Sychaei  (iv.  501). 

"  I  think,"  wrote  Fox,  "  the  coarsest  thing  in  the  whole 
book  (not,  indeed,  in  point  of  indecency,  but  in  want  of 
sentiment)  is  verse  502.  She  thought  she  would  take  it  as 
she  did  the  last  time  is  surely  vulgar  and  coarse  to  the  last 
degree."  ^  Dr  Henry  warmly  apostrophizes  "  Mr  Fox  "  in 
an  almost  Montanist  outburst  upon  second  marriages  in 
general,  and  ardently  repels  the  suggestion  that  Virgil  is 
coarse  or  deficient  in  sentiment.  But  whether  Fox  imagined 
or  not  that  the  view  which  he  condemned  as  coarse  was 
Virgil's  own,  the  criticism  is  entirely  just,  if  it  is  directed 
upon  Anna.  It  is  Anna's  view,  and  it  is  "  coarse "  and 
"  wanting  in  sentiment."  But  it  is  hardly  more  so  than  her 
first  speech  to  Dido  on  the  subject  of  her  new  passion. 

It  is  a  most  significant  utterance.  Why,  she  asks,  should 
Dido  forgo  the  pleasures  of  husband  and  children  ?  She 
has  remained  unmarried  so  far  out  of  loyalty  to  Sychaeus. 

Id  cinerem  aut  manes  credis  curare  sepultos  ?  ^  (iv.  34). 

Sychaeus,  like  Frederick  Prince  of  Wales  in  the  old 
rhyme — 

Was  alive  and  is  dead ; 
There's  no  more  to  be  said. 

Anna  asks  herself  why  Dido  has  never  married  again,  and 
the  only  reason  of  which  she  can  conceive — the  only  reason 
that  could  weigh  with  herself — is  that  she  had  not  so  far 
wished  to  do  it.  But  if  she  wishes  to  now,  why  should  she 
not?  larbas  and  the  Africans — she  might  well  (shall  we 
say  .-•)  mislike  them  for  their  complexion ;  but  Aeneas  is  a 
hero  of  another  colour  ;  and  if  Dido  cares  to  marry  him — 

placitone  etiam  pugnabis  amori  ?  ^  (iv.  38). 

1  Letter  to  Wakefield,  in  Russell's  Memoirs  of  Fox,  vol.  iv.  p.  426,  cited  by 
Henry  ad  loc. 

*  "Think  you  that  ashes  and  a  ghost  in  a  grave  heed  this  ? " 

*  "  Will  you  contend  even  with  a  love  that  is  to  your  liking?  " 


I 


DIDO  189 

Anna  is  a  Cyrenaic  in  her  philosophy,  and  inclination  is 
her  guide  in  life.  She  proceeds  to  fortify  her  advice  by  a 
number  of  political  considerations — 

nee  venit  in  mentem  quorum  consederis  arvis  ?  1  (iv.  39), 

Gaetulians,  Numidians,  Barcaeans  and  Tyrians  are  all 
threatening  Dido,  and  only  to  be  overcome  by  the  aid 
of  Aeneas.     But  the  real  reason  is  still  transparent. 

Tu  lacrimis  evicta  meis, 

says  Dido  later  on,  when  she  has  realized  her  mistake.^ 

Tt  (T€/j.vofJi.vOeig  ',  ov  \oywv  evcrxifJi-ovoov 
Sei  a-',  aWa  ravSpo?. 

So  says  her  nurse  to  Phaedra  in  the  play  of  Euripides,'  and 
Anna's  feeling  is  no  other. 

Dido,  we  have  seen,  is  a  woman  of  some  character  and 
greatness,  but  her  forte  is  action  rather  than  reflection. 
Hers  after  all  has  been  an  "  unexamined  life,"  and,  in  her 
hour  of  need,  she  has  nothing  adequate  on  which  to  fall 
back.  She  surrenders  at  once,  and  gives  up  her  ideal  for 
her  inclination.  Virgil  marks  this  definitely  enough. 
Dido  had  invoked  on  herself  the  most  awful  curse — 

ante,  pudor,  quam  te  violo  aut  tua  iura  resolvo  *  (iv.  27) — 

and  now  Anna's  words  have  achieved  exactly  what  Dido  in 
her  excitement  had  deprecated. 

His  dictis  incensum  animum  flammavit  amore 
spemque  dedit  dubiae  menti  solvitque  pudorem  ^  (iv.  54). 

It  is  easy  to  underestimate  and  to  overestimate  this 
comment  of  Virgil's  by  giving  little  or  much  emphasis  to 
pudor.     Conington  ^   and    Mackail    both    render    it    honour, 

^   "  Nor  do  you  think  upon  whose  lands  you  have  settled?" 

*  "  Overcome  by  my  tears,"  iv.  548. 

3  Hippolytiis,  490.  "Why  speak  so  proudly?  'Tis  not  fair  words  thou 
needest,  but — the  man  ! " 

*  "  Ere  I  do  thee  wrong,  my  woman's  honour,  or  break  thy  laws." 

*  "  By  these  words  she  added  fresh  fuel  to  the  fire  of  love,  gave  confidence  to 
her  wavering  mind,  and  loosed  the  ties  of  woman's  honour"  (Conington). 

*  In  the  prose  rendering.  In  the  verse  translation  he  makes  it  "woman's 
shame." 


190  VIRGIL 

but  of  honour  there  are  various  conceptions.  Different 
minds  will  form  different  judgements  upon  a  widow,  who 
owns  to  herself  that  a  new  love  has  taken  possession  of  her, 
and  who  resolves  to  win  the  man  she  loves.  A  certain 
school,  not  altogether  free  from  the  charge  of  prudishness, 
will  at  once  condemn  her.  But  the  serious  student  will 
rarely  begin  by  taking  the  unkindest  view.  Pudor  is 
something  easier  to  feel  than  to  define.  It  is  a  peculiar 
and  unexplained  sensitiveness,  which  Anna,  as  we  have 
seen,  could  not  understand — loyalty  to  an  ideal,  and  tin 
ideal  with  which  reason  has  less  to  do  than  instinct. 
Many  readers  will  accordingly  think  little  of  it,  as  Anna 
did.  But  in  spite  of  argument  Dido's  conscience  is  still  on 
the  side  of  this  instinct  of  hers  ;  and  though  she  decides  to 
follow  inclination,  slightly  cloaked  by  reason,  her  heart 
condemns  her  all  the  time.  Se  iudice  7iemo  nocens  ahsolvi- 
tur  said  Juvenal,  a  phrase  much  used  by  moralists  of  later 
days.i  It  would  be  unfair  to  Dido  to  suppose  that  she  has 
yet  lost  what  the  world  would  call  ptidor,  as  she  lost  it  later 
on.  But  the  end  is  the  outcome  of  the  beginning.  To 
resolve  to  win  the  love  of  Aeneas  is  no  wrong  thought  or 
action,  but  to  attempt  it  against  her  conscience  is  the  first 
step  toward  shame. 

Dido  has  made  the  great  refusal,  and  at  once  she  and  her 
sister  betake  themselves  to  the  temples,  There  is  something 
startling  in  Virgil's  abrupt  combination  of  these  ideas. 

His  dictis  .  .  .  solvitque  pudorem. 
Principio  delubra  adeunt  pacemque  per  aras 
exquirunt  {A.  iv.  53-56). 

"In  the  true  spirit  of  tragic  irony,"  writes  Professor 
Nettleship,  "  Virgil  represents  Dido  and  her  sister  as 
sacrificing  to  win  the  favour  of  heaven,  from  which  she 
has  just  invoked  a  curse  on  her  faithlessless ;  and  to  what 
gods  does  she  sacrifice  ?  To  Ceres,  Apollo,  and  Lyaeus,  the 
gods  presiding  over  the  foundation  of  cities  and  the  giving 
of  laws,  when  she  is    forgetting  her  duty   as    a   queen  ;  to 

1  "No  guilty  person  is  ever  acquitted  by  himself,"  Juvenal,  xiii.  3  ;  cited  by 
Macr.  Co7iim.  Somn.  Scip.  i.  10.  12. 


DIDO  191 

Juno  the  goddess  of  marriage,  when  she  is  forgetting  her 
faith  to  her  husband."  ^ 

Heu  vatum  ignarae  mentes  !  quid  vota  furentem, 
quid  delubra  iuvant?  (iv.  65).^ 

This  is  Virgil's  comment  on  Dido's  sacrifices — one  of  those 
utterances  in  which  he  seems  to  speak  his  innermost  mind 
about  gods  and  sacred  things.  What  help  is  there  in  shrine 
or  sacrifice  for  one  resolved  to  do  what  seems  wrong  ? 
Dido's  prayers  and  oft"erings  are  superstition,  an  indica- 
tion of  a  mental  flaw  in  her,  which  is  more  emphasized  by 
and  by. 

Her  courting  of  Aeneas  proceeds.  She  leads  him  with  her 
through  Carthage ;  she  displays  to  him  the  treasures  of 
Sidon  ;  he  is  seeking  a  city,  and  she  shows  him  a  city  built 
and  finished,  to  be  his  for  the  asking  ;  she  begins  to  speak 
and  stops — will  he  not  see  that  she  is  offering  him  the  city 
he  seeks,  offering  him  herself  the  queen  of  it?  He  does  not 
see.  Then  evening  by  evening,  again  and  again,  she 
recurs  to  the  story  of  Troy.  But  he  does  not  understand, 
and  they  part,  he  to  sleep,  she  to  return  to  the  couch  on 
v/hich  he  had  lain  in  the  banqueting-room,  to  see  and 
hear  him  once  more  in  imagination.  She  takes  Ascanius  to 
her  heart  to  find  her  way  to  his  father's.     So  the  days  pass. 

The  surrender  of  one  ideal  begins  to  affect  her  general 
sense  of  duty.  She  neglects  Carthage.  In  the  first  book 
Virgil  gives  a  picture  of  her  activity  before  this  fatal 
passion  began.     The  Tyrians  are  hot  at  work — 

instant  ardentes  Tyrii — 

raising  huge  walls,  digging  harbours,  laying  foundations  for 
the   theatre,  hewing   columns  from  the  rock,  busy  as  bees 
(i.  423  f).     As  Venus  says,    Dido  is  the   moving  spirit  of 
it  all- 
dux  femina  facti — 

^  Essays  in  Latin  Lit.  i.  p.  127. 

*  "Alas!  for  the  blind  hearts  of  seers!  What  help  have  vows,  what  help 
have  shrines  for  the  madness  of  love  ?  "  Contrast  with  the  passage  in  Apollonius, 
where  the  crow  laughs  at  the  prophet  who  has  forgotten  that  two  is  company  and 
three  none.  Argon,  iii.  931. 


192  VIRGIL 

and  we  see  her  pressing  on  the  work,  her  kingdom  that  is 
to  be — 

instans  operi  regnisque  futuris  (i.  504). 

But  now  the  towers  she  had  begun  cease  to  rise  ;  no  more  is 
there  practice  in  arms  ;  no  heed  is  given  to  harbour  or 
bastion,  the  work  hangs  suspended,  "frowning  and  giant 
towers,  grim  engines  mounting  the  sky."  ^  The  crane  with 
its  long  arm  idly  reaching  to  heaven  is  a  poor  augury  for  the 
ultimate  value  of  Anna's  political  considerations. 

At  this  point  comes  the  episode  of  Juno  and  Venus.  The 
plan,  which  Juno  unfolds,  is  fulfilled  to  the  letter.  The 
hunting-party  takes  place  ;  it  is  interrupted  by  the  storm. 
In  the  excitement  and  confusion,  which  follow.  Dido 
speaks  her  mind.  Pronuba  Juno  it  may  be  who  contrives 
the  match ;  but  when  Aeneas  later  on  says 

nee  coniugis  unquam 
praetendi  taedas  aut  haec  in  foedera  veni  ^  (iv.  338), 

it  is  well  to  remember  that,  whether  or  not  the  words  sound 
harsh  and  heartless,  they  are  true,  and  Dido  knows  that 
they  are  true.^ 

If  Carthage  was  neglected  before,  it  is  still  more  neg- 
lected now.     Rumour  denounces  both  Aeneas  and  Dido  as 

regnorum  immemores  turpique  cupidine  captos  (iv.  194). 

For  her  pains  the  poet  elaborately  describes  Rumour  as 
a  fiend,^  but  she  is  only  saying  what  heaven  will   have  to 

^  Non  coeptae  adsurguni  turres  ;  non  arma  inventus 

exercet,  portusve  aut  propiignacula  hello 
tuta  parant :  pendent  opera  interrupta  minaeqiie 
murorum  higentes  aequataque  viachina  caelo  {A.  iv.  86). 

2  "  Nor  did  I  ever  hold  out  the  marriage  torch  or  enter  thus  into  alliance" 
(Mackail). 

^  I  am  glad  to  find  this  view  supported  by  M.  Girard,  Etudes  sur  la  po^sie 
grecgue,  p.  348  :  "  II  donne  a  Junon,  qui  preside  a  I'union  d'Enee  et  de  Didon, 
le  nom  respecte  de  Pronuba  .  .  precisement  au  moment  ou  elle  assure  le  succes 
d'une  surprise  de  I'amour  et  emprunte  le  role  de  Venus.  Cette  confusion  volon- 
taire  qu'il  fait  dans  un  passage  capital  ne  trompe  ni  Didon  elle-meme,  malgre  ses 
efforts  pour  s'abuser,  ni  surtout  Enee,  qui  ne  sait  que  trop  nettement  la  valeur 
d'un  tel  engagement."  Sainte-Beuve  has  some  good  criticism  in  his  essay  on  the 
Medea  of  Apollonius  {Rev.  des  deux  Maudes,  1845,  '^ol.  xi.  p.  889). 

*  Monstruin  horrendum,  dea  foeda,  malum  quo  non  vclocius  ulluni  {A.  iv. 
173  f-)- 


DIDO  193 

say  very  soon.  Indeed,  the  Omnipotent  Jupiter  himself, 
when  his  attention  is  called  to  it,  recognizes  that  the 
fiend  spoke  truth.  He  looks  at  Carthage  and  he  sees 
that  the  lovers  have  indeed  forgotten  their  better  fame — 

oblitos  famae  melioris  amantes  (iv.  221). 

So  much  for  Anna's  advice.  Solvit  pudorem.  Dido 
turned  her  back  on  her  ideal  for  inclination,  and  found 
that  inclination  demanded  more  and  more,  and,  at  last, 
the  sacrifice  of  everything  she  honoured  in  herself.  She 
has  been  taken  further  than  she  meant  to  go. 

Omne  maluvi  aut  timore  aut  pudore  natjira  perfudit}  wrote 
a  great  Carthaginian.  Tertullian's  saying  might  well 
be  illustrated  from  this  story  of  the  foundress  of  his  city. 
Dido  has  achieved  the  gratification  of  her  inclination, 
but  it  has  hardly  contributed  to  her  happiness.  All  seems 
well,  and  she  is  afraid  because  it  does  so  seem — 

omnia  tuta  timens  (iv.  298) — 

and  she  cannot  find  rest.  She  is  watching  Aeneas  all 
the  time.  She  knows  the  story  of  his  seven  years'  quest  ; 
she  knows  the  long  direction  of  his  mind  to  Italy;  can  she 
be  sure  of  his  remaining  with  her?  All  seems  safe  and 
assured — yet  she  has  presentiments  of  pain — 

hunc  ego  si  potui  tantum  sperare  dolorem  ^  (iv.  419). 

She  knows  everything  that  the  Trojans  are  doing.  The 
first  suggestion  of  movement  among  them  reaches  her 
instantly  (iv.  296).  This  uneasiness  of  mind  is  seen-  in 
her  whole  conduct.  She  is,  as  Aeneas  puts  it  to  him- 
self, a  regina  furens  (iv.  283).  All  the  disorder  of  her 
mind  is  asserting  itself  now  that  the  control  of  duty  is 
thrown  off. 

Nor  is  Aeneas  happier.  So  complete  a  change  of  life 
and   purpose   could    not    be  made   without   many  a   return 

*  "  Nature  has  steeped  every  evil  thing  either  in  fear  or  shame." 

•  "  If  I  have  been  able  to  foresee  this  mighty  grief." 

13 


194  VllU.TI. 

of  thoujijht  to  past  years.  When  the  strain  of  watchinc^ 
Dido's  moods  is  relaxed,  the  old  and  more  real  mind 
asserts  itself.  He  thinks  of  the  Troy  left  behind  ;  perhaps 
of  the  wife  taken  from  him  on  the  last  night  of  Troy ; 
of  that  Italy  which  so  many  oracles  and  prophecies  had 
bidden  him  seek  ;  and  of  all  the  years  of  voyaging.  He 
thinks  of  his  father,  the  Anchises  of  the  second  and  third 
books,  long  partner  of  his  quest,  bound  up,  while  life 
lasted,  in  the  hopes  of  a  great  future  for  his  race  in  the 
new  land  ;  and  when  he  sleeps,  he  sees  his  father's  face 
troubled  {tiirbicia,  iv,  353) — no  longer  his  "solace  in  every 
care  and  chance  " — 

omnis  curae  casusque  levamen  (iii.  709), 

but  an  object  oi  fear — he  cannot  look  him  in  the  eyes 
{terret,  iv.  353).  He  thinks  of  his  son,  of  the  wrong  he 
does  the  child  who  also  had  shared  the  wanderings,  and 
for  whom  the  bright  future  overseas  must  mean  more  (iv. 
354,  355).  And  all  this  makes  the  frantic  passion  of  the 
queen  less  and  less  tolerable.  Yet  she  too  has  a  hold 
upon  him  ;  he  feels  for  her  (iv.  l^z,  395). 

The  turning-point  is  reached  when  Mercury  appears 
to  Aeneas,  and,  faithful  to  the  instructions  of  Jupiter, 
asks  him  the  questions  he  has  been  asking  himself — 

"  He,  he,  the  Sire,  enthroned  on  high, 
Whose  nod  strikes  awe  through  earth  and  sky. 
He  sends  me  down,  and  bids  me  bear 
His  mandate  through  the  bounding  air. 
What  make  you  here?  what  cherished  scheme 
Tempts  you  in  Libyan  land  to  dream.? 
If  zeal  no  more  your  soul  inflame 
/  To  labour  for  your  own  fair  fame, 

Let  young  Ascanius  claim  your  care  : 
Regard  the  promise  of  your  heir, 
To  whom,  by  warranty  of  fate 
The  Italian  crown,  the  Roman  state, 
Of  right  arc  owing."     Hermes  said, 
And  e'en  in  speaking  passed  and  fled.^ 

'  A.  iv.  268-76,  Conington. 


DIDO  195 

Heaven's  "mandate"  takes,  as  it  frequently  does,  the  form 
of  a  question,  the  articulate  expression  of  what  the  mind 
has  been  shaping  to  itself.  To  such  questions  the  answer  is 
always  ready.  Hcu  quid  agat  ?  What  is  he  to  do  ?  Aeneas 
has  not  been  told  to  leave  Carthage.  If  Jupiter  uttered  his 
wish  in  one  word,  naviget,  it  was  to  Mercury,  and  Mercury 
did  not  repeat  it.  Aeneas  will  sail.  On  that  he  is  clear 
enough,  but  how  is  he  to  do  it?  How  is  he  to  broach  it  to 
the  queen,  who  is  even  now  only  on  the  border-line  of 
sanity — reginam  furentem  ?  This  task  he  postpones,  and 
Dido  does  it  for  him. 

The  successive  utterances  of  Dido  from  this  point  to  the 
end  are  not  to  be  translated,  and  here  a  bare  summary 
must  suffice.  She  at  once  charges  Aeneas  with  the  inten- 
tion of  leaving  her.  Her  love  goes  for  nothing.  It  is 
winter  ;  ^  he  is  not  even  homeward  bound ;  he  seeks  an 
unknown  shore — and  yet  he  leaves  her.  By  ever}'thing 
that  can  move  him,  by  everything  she  has  been  to  him,  she 
pleads  for  his  pity.  Her  neighbours  hate  her  on  his  account 
Her  good  name  has  been  sacrificed  for  him — 

te  propter  eundem 
extinctus  pudor. 

His  going  means  death  to  her.  If  only  she  had  a  child  to 
recall  his  face,  z  fan' u  I  us  Aeneas,  she  would  not  be  so  utterly 
lost. 2 

Aeneas  replies,  and  his  answer  is  for  the  student  one  of 
some  difficulty  through  its  alternations  of  feeling  and  coldness. 
He  admits  what  Dido  has  done  for  him,  yet  his  phrase  jars 
upon  the  ear  ;  he  will  never  forget  her — 

nee  me  meminisse  pigebit  Elissae. 

*'  But  to  come  to  the  matter  in  hand  " — 

pro  re  pauca  loquar — 

he  had  not  thought  of  stealing  from  her  land,  though  he  had 
never  meant  to  stay  there.     Then  in  a  strong  outburst  of  truth 

^  We  might    almost   hate  diyined    this   from   the   beautifal  song  of   lopas, 
^-  i.  7  44  f-  *  iv.   305-30. 


196  VIRGIL 

he  tells  her  that,  if  fate  allowed  him  to  choose  his  life  to 
please  himself,  first  and  foremost  would  he  set  the  city  of 
Troy,  all  that  was  left  of  his  people — a  new  Troy  should  rise. 
But  he  is  compelled  by  the  gods  to  seek  Italy.  Let  her 
think  what  Carthage  has  been  to  her,  a  new  town  as  it  is  and 
on  an  unknown  shore,  and  she  would  wonder  no  more  at  his 
seeking  a  strange  land.  He  tells  her  of  his  dreams  of  his 
father,  of  his  thoughts  of  his  son,  of  his  vision  of  Mercury. 
Let  her  not  set  herself  and  him  on  fire  with  words  of  passion. 
He  has  no  choice. 

Italiam  non  sponte  sequor.^ 

The  response  of  Dido  is  a  v/ild  outbreak  of  fury,  in  marked 
contrast  to  the  delicacy  and  kindliness  of  her  welcome 
of  Aeneas  in  the  first  book,  but  after  all  nothing  new  or 
strange  in  her  much-wronged  and  disordered  heart.  It  has 
not  shown  itself  markedly  till  now,  but  we  realize  at  last 
that  there  is  some  touch  of  the  Oriental  in  Dido,  and  we 
recognize  that  we  have  had  hints  of  it  before.    Venus  felt  it — 

quippe  domum  timet  ambiguam  ^  (i.  66 1), 

but  we  have  better  evidence  in  the  tale  which  Ilioneus  tells. 
He  had  been  attacked  by  the  Carthaginians  on  the  shore, 
and  his  ships  were  in  danger  of  being  burnt ;  shipwrecked 
mariners,  they  were  forbidden  "the  hospitality  of  the  sand" 
(i.  522-41).  In  the  graciousness  of  Dido's  reply,  we  do  not 
notice  that  she  admits  her  own  responsibility  for  this  outrage 
on  humanity — 

Res  dura  et  regni  novitas  me  talia  cogunt 
moliri  et  late  fines  custode  tueri  ^  (i.  562). 

The  savage  element  in  her  nature  lies  dormant  during  the 
early  part  of  Aeneas'  stay,  but  we  have  seen  signs  of  its 
waking,  and  now  it  is  not  only  awake  but  entirely  master 
of  her. 

Her  eyes  roll  in  fury,  and  she  speaks  in  taunt  and  curse. 

1  iv.  331-61.  ^  "She  fears  the  two-faced  generation." 

*  "  It  is  the  stress  of  danger  and  the  infancy  of  my  kingdom  that  make  me  put 
this  policy  in  motion  and  protect  my  frontiers  with  a  guard  all  about."  We  may 
recall  how  Venus  put  a  cloud  about  Aeneas  on  his  way  to  the  city  {A.  i.  411). 


DIDO  197 

Goddess-born  !  not  he !  he  is  not  even  human  !  Have  her 
tears  cost  him  a  sigh  ?  Look  at  his  hard,  cold  eyes — have 
they  wept?  Has  he  pitied  her?  She  had  pitied  him,  a 
shipwrecked  beggar  on  her  shore.  So  the  gods  send  him 
to  Italy  !  And  here  Dido  shows  that,  for  all  her  supersti- 
tion, a  hedonist  is  apt  to  be  Epicurean.  She  has  appealed 
to  Juno  and  Jupiter,  but  now — 

Scilicet  is  superis  labor  est,  ea  cura  quietos 
sollicitat  (iv.  379).^ 

Let  him  go,  if  he  likes,  and  hunt  a  kingdom  through  the 
waves — and  be  wrecked — if  there  is  such  a  thing  as  divine 
justice  and  if  it  has  so  much  power — 

siquid  pia  numina  possunt.^ 

She  will  have  vengeance,^ 

She  flings  herself  away,  and  leaves  him  "hesitating  and 
fearing  and  thinking  of  a  thousand  things  to  say."  *  He  can 
do  nothing  but  push  on  his  preparations,  openly  now. 

Dido's  mood  changes  as  she  watches  from  her  palace,  and 
she  sends  Anna  to  entreat,  but  not  now  for  the  coniugium 
of  her  former  hopes,  not  for  the  abandonment  of  his  quest 
of  Latium — with  a  dash  of  bitterness  she  calls  it  "  beauti- 
ful Latium  "  ;  she  only  asks  time,  empty  time,  a  breathing- 
space  to  give  her  madness  rest  and  room,  till  fortune  teach 
her  grief  submission.  But  Aeneas  will  be  entangled  no 
more.  His  tears  flow  as  he  listens  to  Anna,  but  they  flow 
in  vain,  his  mind  is  unshaken — 

mens  immota  manet^  {^A.  iv.  449). 

Despair  achieves  Dido's  descent  into  insanity.  She  sees 
awful  sights,  and  tells  no  one,  not  even  her  sister.  The 
screech  of  the   owl   becomes   an   omen.     All  her  Oriental 

*  "  Aye,  of  course,  that  is  the  employment  of  the  powers  above,  those  the 
cares  that  break  their  rest  "  (Conington). 

*  Does  Virgil  mean  to  recall  Aeneas'  words,  i.  603?  '  A.  iv.  362-87. 

*  A.  iv.  390  linquens  mtilla  nietu  cundantcm  et  viulta parantevi  dicere. 

*  I  am  glad  to  think  that  Dr  Henry  holds  the  lacrimae  volvunttir  inanes  to 
refer  to  Aeneas,  though  Conington  dissents. 


198  VIRGIL 

superstition  is  quickened,  and  her  bad  dreams  become  more 
frequent  and  terrifying.     In  her  sleep 

Aeneas  with  unpitying  face 
Still  hounds  her  in  a  nightly  chase  ; 
And  still  companionless  she  seems 
To  tread  the  wilderness  of  dreams, 
And  vainly  still  her  Tyrians  seek 
Through  desert  regions,  ah,  how  bleak  !  ^ 

She  resolves  to  kill  herself,  and  with  the  cunning  of  mad- 
ness deceives  her  sister  into  making  the  preparations  she 
requires  by  talking  of  magic.  Anna's  unemotional  sanity 
fails,  naturally  enough,  to  divine  her  sister's  feelings  in  the 
least.  It  will,  she  expects,  be  no  worse  than  when  Sychaeus 
was  killed.^ 

All  is  made  ready,  as  Dido  bids,  and  in  the  silence  of 
night  her  trouble  wakes  again.  What  is  left  open  to  her? 
To  trust  herself  to  Aeneas  and  go  with  him  ?  Trust  human 
gratitude,  the  gratitude  of  the  race  of  Laomedon  ?  Better 
to  die,  since  she  has  not  kept  faith  with  Sychaeus.^ 

Meanwhile  all  is  ready  on  the  Trojan  fleet.  Aeneas, 
resolved  upon  departure,  is  asleep  on  the  poop  of  his  ship, 
when  Mercury  again  appears — this  time  in  a  dream — and 
tells  him  how  things  stand.  Dido  is  resolved  to  die,  but 
before  she  dies  she  will  have  vengeance ;  by  morning  the 
harbour  will  be  a  scene  of  flame  and  wreckage.  Let  him 
be  up  and  going.  "  A  thing  of  moods  and  fancies  is  woman."  * 
And  with  these  words  the  god  is  gone.  Aeneas  leaps  up, 
calls  his  men  and  cuts  his  cable;  his  fleet  is  off  and  away; 
and  for  him  the  story  of  Dido  is  ended — save  for  surmise  and 
pain.^ 

With  the  first  gleam  of  dawn  Dido  is  at  her  outlook  and 
sees  the  harbour  empty,  and  in  her  uncontrolled  outburst 
of  rage  she  shows  how  well  founded  was   the  warning  of 

^  Virgil  is  thought  to  have  had  in  mind  some  lines  of  Ennius  :  Annals,  i. 
fragm.  xxxii.  ita  sola  \  postilla,  gerniana  soror,  a-rare  videbar  \  tardaque  vestigare 
et  quaerere  te  neque  posse  \  corde  capessere ;  &'c:  ap.  Cicero,  de  div.  i.  20.  40. 

^A.  iv.  450-503-  ^  A.  iv.  521-53. 

*  Variuin  et  mutabile  semper femina,  A.  iv.  569.  ^  A.  v.  5-7. 


DIDO  199 

the  dream.  She  begins  with  a  scream  of  fury  at  his  escape 
— can  they  not  overtake  him  ?  Out  with  their  oars  and 
firebrands,  down  to  the  water  with  the  ships  !  Then  the 
queen  in  her  asserts  itself;  her  practical  genius  is  aghast 
at  her  madness — 

Quid  loquor?  aut  ubi  sum?  quae  mentem  insania  mutat  ? 

O  !  that  way  madness  lies  ;  let  me  shun  that ; 
No  more  of  that. 

"  Poor  Dido ! "  she  says  in  quieter  strain,  "  now  dost  thou 
feel  thy  wickedness?  That  had  graced  thee  then,  when 
thou  gavest  away  thy  sceptre."  ^  But  the  very  thought  of 
what  she  had  given  to  Aeneas  wakes  madness  once  more, 
and  her  momentary  self-control  is  gone  ;  she  falls  a-cursing, 
unpacks  her  heart  with  words.  Murder  is  her  thought — 
could  she  not  have  murdered  him — his  men — Ascanius — or, 
better,  have  killed  the  boy,  and,  like  Thyestes,  given  him 
to  his  father  to  eat?  Suppose  there  had  been  a  battle? 
There  might  have  been  danger?  What  danger,  when  she 
meant  to  die,  would  die  ?  She  pauses,  and  a  change  comes 
over  her  mood.  When  she  speaks,  it  is  in  a  quieter  tone, 
and  she  utters  the  last  great  curse,  the  curse  that  embroils 
Roman  and  Carthaginian  for  ever. 

Eye  of  the  world,  majestic  Sun, 

Who  see'st  whate'er  on  earth  is  done, 

Thou,  Juno,  too,  interpreter 

And  witness  of  this  heart's  wild  stir, 

And  Hecate,  tremendous  power. 

In  cross-ways  howled  at  midnight  hour, 

Avenging  fiends,  and  gods  of  death 

Who  breathe  in  d)'ing  Dido's  breath, 

^  Surely  Henry  and  Mackail  are  right  in  taking  \!a&  facta  impia  to  be  Dido's 
own.  Henry  cites  Euripides,  Medea,  796  iindpravov  rbd',  ijviK'  e^eXl/nravoi' 
dofiovs  ■jrarpijious,  and  Hippolytus,  1072  rbre.  arevd^eiv  Kal  Trpoyiviba'Keii'  ixRV")  ^'^' 
et's  iraTpt^av  dXoxov  v^pi^eiv  ^tXtjj,  and  for  the  tan^unt  the  most  dramatic  line 
of  the  Hippolytus  (310).  Is  the  cause  of  Phaedra's  sorrow,  asks  the  nurse,  her 
stepson  ? 

'l7r7r6Xi;ro»'  ;  4>AI.  o'^iot.     TP.    Biy^dviL  aeOev  rode  ; 
These  plays  were  very  carefully  studied  by  Virgil,  and  their  evidence  confirms 
the  interpretation,  if  confirmation  is  needed. 


200  VIRGIL 

Stoop  your  great  powers  to  ills  that  plead 

To  heaven,  and  my  petition  heed. 

If  needs  must  be  that  wretch  abhorred 

Attain  the  port  and  float  to  land  ; 
If  such  the  will  of  heaven's  high  lord, 

And  so  the  fated  order  stand ; 
615  Scourged  by  a  savage  enemy, 

An  exile  from  his  son's  embrace, 
So  let  him  sue  for  aid,  and  see 

His  people  slain  before  his  face ; 
Nor,  when  to  humbling  peace  at  length 

He  stoops,  be  his  or  life  or  land. 
But  let  him  fall  in  manhood's  strength 

And  lie  unburied  on  the  sand. 
This  last  of  prayers  to  heaven  I  pour, 
This  last  I  pray,  and  pray  no  more. 
And,  Tyrians,  you  through  time  to  come 

His  seed  with  deathless  hatred  chase : 
Be  that  your  gift  to  Dido's  tomb  : 

No  love,  no  league,  'twixt  race  and  race. 
Rise  from  my  ashes,  scourge  of  crime, 

Born  to  pursue  the  Dardan  horde. 
To-day,  to-morrow,  through  all  time, 

Oft  as  our  hands  can  wield  the  sword : 
Fight  shore  with  shore,  fight  sea  with  sea, 
Fight  all  that  are  or  e'er  shall  be !  ^ 

The  preparations  she  had  ordered  have  been  made ;  all  is 
ready  and  she  is  ready.  "  Fluttered  and  fierce  in  her  awful 
purpose,  with  bloodshot  restless  gaze,  and  spots  on  her 
quivering  cheeks  burning  through  the  pallor  of  approaching 
death,  she  bursts  into  the  inner  courts  of  the  house  and 
mounts  in  madness  the  high  funeral  pyre."  On  it  lay  the 
bed— 

lectumque  iugalem 
quo  peril  (A.  iv,  496) — 

1  A.  iv.  607-27,  Conington,  but  with  an  alteration  or  two.  The  reader  will 
remember  the  anecdote  that  Charles  I.,  drawing  for  a  sors  Vergiliana,  lit  on  the 
lines  615  f. — at  bello  audacis  poptili  vexatits  et  armis,  &c. 


DIDO  20I 

the  dress  of  Aeneas,  an  image  of  him,i  and  his  sword,  begged 
of  him  as  a  keepsake,  but  for  no  such  use  as  now  it  finds. 
She  drew  it  from  its  sheatji,  and  pressed  her  bosom  to  the 
bed. 

"  Sweet  relics  of  a  time  of  love. 

When  fate  and  heaven  were  kind, 
Receive  my  life-blood,  and  remove 

These  torments  of  the  mind. 
My  life  is  lived,  and  I  have  played 

The  part  that  fortune  gave. 
And  now  I  pass,  a  queenly  shade, 

Majestic  to  the  grave. 
A  glorious  city  I  have  built, 

Have  seen  my  walls  ascend. 
Chastised  for  blood  of  husband  spilt, 

A  brother,  yet  no  friend. 
Blest  lot !  yet  lacked  one  blessing  more. 
That  Troy  had  never  touched 'my  shore." 
Then,  as  she  kissed  the  darling  bed, 
"  To  die  !  and  unrevenged  !  "  she  said, 
*'  Yet  let  me  die:  thus,  thus  I  go 
Rejoicing  to  the  shades  below. 
Let  the  false  Dardan  feel  the  blaze 
That  burns  me  pouring  on  his  gaze, 
And  bear  along,  to  cheer  his  way, 
The  funeral  presage  of  to-day."  '^ 

These  are  the  last  words  of  Dido.  We  need  not  linger 
to  listen  to  Anna's  lament,  or  to  watch  the  slow  death- 
struggle  with  its  strange  ending,  suggested  by  the  story 
of  Death  and  Alcestis.^  The  story  is  told.  St  Augustine 
wept   over    Dido   quia   se   occidit   ob   amorem ;  *    she    killed 

^  This  to  deceive  Anna,  perhaps.  The  use  of  an  image  in  magic  is  familiar. 
Cf.  Theocritus,  ii.  28,  and  Virg.  E.  8.  80. 

*  A.  iv,  651-62.  Conington's  version.  There  are  weaknesses  in  this 
translation,  but  in  what  translation  of  the  passage  are  there  not  ?  I  am  more  and 
more  conscious  of  my  own  inability  to  render  Virgil. 

*  The  cutting  of  the  lock  of  hair,  done  by  Death  in  the  case  of  Alcestis 
{Eurip.  Ale.  74),  is  managed  in  Dido's  by  Iris,  A.  iv.  704. 

*  Conf.  i.  13.  20. 


202  VIRGIL 

herself  for  love,  and  let  us  end  with  that.  Love  for  Aeneas 
after  all  has  mastered  her  madness,  and  her  hatred,  and 
it  is  the  dominant  note  in  her  death. 


VI 

Whereupon  all  the  friendly  moralists 

Drew  this  conclusion  :  chirped,  each  beard  to  each : 

"Manifold  are  thy  shapings,  Providence  ! 

Many  a  hopeless  matter  gods  arrange. 

What  we  expected  never  came  to  pass  : 

What  we  did  not  expect  gods  brought  to  bear ; 

So  have  things  gone,  this  whole  experience  through  ! " 

Thus  Browning  and  Euripides  tell  us  that  the  Chorus  of 
the  play  will  not  pluck  out  for  us  the  heart  of  the  poet's 
mystery,  but  that  if  it  is  to  be  done  we  must  do  it  for 
ourselves.  Virgil  seems  to  be  of  their  opinion  ;  at  any  rate 
he  gives  us  no  Chorus  and  very  little  comment.  What  does 
he  mean  ? 

We  have  the  story  of  an  entanglement,  which  results  in 
the  woman's  death,  while  the  man  apparently  escapes  scot- 
free.  Dido  is  drawn  with  such  truth  and  interest  by  the 
poet,  that  she  has  enlisted  the  sympathies  of  all  readers. 
Of  whatever  mistakes  she  is  guilty,  whatever  the  flaws 
of  her  character,  she  is  a  great  woman.  There  is  nothing 
incredible  in  her  story — it  happens  every  day — and  our 
sympathies  go  with  her,  right  or  wrong.  Our  sympathies — 
but  our  judgement?  If  the  view  here  put  forward  has  been 
true  to  Virgil's  mind,  we  shall  have  to  own  that  our  judge- 
ment must  reluctantly  be  given  against  her — but  in  the 
same  spirit  as  it  is  given  against  Oedipus  or  King  Lear. 
Like  the  ideal  tragic  hero  of  Aristotle,  she  falls  from  a 
height  of  greatness,  and  "the  disaster  that  wrecks  her 
life  may  be  traced  not  to  deliberate  wickedness,  but  to 
some  great  error  or  frailty."^  Her  ruin  is  due  to  a  failure 
of  will.     Accident  throws  Aeneas    in  her  way,  he  becomes 

^  Aristot.  Foet.  xiii.  3  ;  Butcher's  essays,  pp.  311  ff. 


DIDO  203 

to  her  a  temptation,  and    she   sacrifices   her  sense  of  right 
to  her  inclination. 

So  much  perhaps  may  be  agreed,  but  we  have  to  deal 
with  the  part  of  Aeneas  in  the  tragedy.  There  is  a 
declension  from  ideals  in  his  case  also,  which  may  be 
judged  from  various  standpoints  with  very  different  con- 
clusions. It  is  quite  clear  that  he  goes  wrong  in  two  ways, 
first,  by  staying  in  Carthage  when  his  duty  was  to  push  on 
to  Italy ;  and  then  by  agreeing  to  the  proposals  made  by 
Dido  in  her  weakness.  To-day  readers  will  lay  more  stress 
on  the  second  of  these  points,  but  at  the  time,  when  the 
Aeneid  was  written,  probably  the  former  would  seem  the 
more  serious. 

We  must  remember  that  at  that  period  marriage  and 
love  were  terms  which  did  not  suggest  each  other.  The 
connexion  between  them  to-day  seems  so  natural  and  in- 
evitable that  it  is  hard  to  realize  the  ancient  point  of  view. 
We  are  taught  to  admire  Penelope  for  refusing  the  suitors, 
but  it  is  not  suggested  that  we  should  feel  the  least  surprise 
at  the  relations  of  Odysseus  with  Circe  and  Calypso.  Out- 
side the  plays  of  Euripides — the  "woman-hater" — it  is  hard 
to  recall  in  ancient  literature  a  case  of  love  between  man 
and  woman  parallel  to  that  of  Hector  and  Andromache. 
The  Roman  feeling  is  sufficiently  revealed  by  the  difficulty 
felt  by  Catullus  in  expressing  his  love  for  Lesbia.  He 
wishes  to  describe  a  love  pure  of  all  selfish  elements,  and 
he  says  that  he  loved  her,  not  as  man  would  love  a  mistress, 
but  as  a  father  would  his  sons  and  sons-in-law.^  This 
extraordinary  comparison  indicates  plainly  enough  the 
distance  between  the  ancient  and  modern  attitude.  Hence 
faithfulness  in  a  husband  and  chastity  in  a  man  were 
neither  expected  nor  particularly  admired.  No  one  thought 
less  of  Julius  because  of  his  relations  with  Cleopatra, 
except  in  so  far  as  he  was  under  her  influence.^  Roman 
opinion  would   not   condemn  Aeneas   for   a  lapse — if  lapse 

1  Catullus,  72.  3,  4  Dilexi  (contrast  the  verb  with  atiiare)  (urn  te  non  tantum  ut 
vulgus  amicam,  sed  pater  ut  gnatos  diligit  et  generos. 

*  Cf.  the  letter  of  Antony,  Suet.  Aug.  69  :  and  the  story  of  Titus  and  Berenice, 
Suet.  Titus,  7. 


204  VIRGIL 

it    were^ — far   less   conspicuous   than   those    of   his    great 
descendant. 

And  yet  the  same  story  comes  differently  from  Suetonius 
and  from  Virgil.  What  is  quite  unnoticed  in  the  common- 
place prose  of  the  one  makes  the  most  painful  impression 
when  it  comes  in  the  poem  of  the  other.  Whether  the 
poet  felt  as  his  readers  feel  to-day  may  be  questioned. ^ 
He  would  perhaps  not  have  been  so  much  shocked  at  such 
an  episode  in  the  life  of  a  contemporary,  but  it  is  almost 
inconceivable  that  he  did  not  see  how  it  would  jar  in 
the  setting  of  his  poetry.  But  whatever  he  thought  or 
felt,  he  has  at  least  made  clear  to  his  readers  the  real 
significance  of  such  action.  The  character  of  Aeneas,  as 
conceived  by  Virgil,  is  a  background  against  which  such 
conduct  is  seen  for  what  it  is — it  becomes  something  very 
like  sin.  It  is  the  reader,  not  Aeneas,  who  realizes  this. 
And  in  his  portrayal  of  Dido,  too,  the  poet  broke  fresh 
ground. 

Nee  me  meminisse  pigebit  Elissae, 

says  Aeneas  (iv,  335),  and  Dido's  reply  is  to  kill  herself 
with  his  sword.  Can  a  thing  be  right,  or  even  only 
slightly  wrong,  which  makes  such  a  painful  contrast  with 
the  ideal  of  manhood  and  which  costs  so  much  to 
woman  ? 

We  are  told  often  enough  that  literature  has  nothing 
to  do  with  morality.  In  a  sense  this  is  true.  The  poet 
and  the  artist  are  concerned  with  reality,  and  have  no 
business  to  preach ;  but  if  their  work  is  true,  it  has 
inevitably,  like  all  life,  morality  implied  in  itself.  It  may 
be  true  that  no  one  has  abstained  from  evil  because  of 
the  story  of  Dido  and  Aeneas,  but  it  is  probably  as  true, 

^  I  should  have  thought  it  needless  to  explain  that  the  words  "  if  lapse  it  were  " 
were  designed  to  represent  Roman  opinion,  not  my  own  ;  but,  as  a  reviewer  in  a 
journal  of  repute  has  mistaken  the  meaning  intended,  it  is  perhaps  as  well  to  be 
explicit. 

'^  But  of.  Suet,  -v.  Verg.  lo  Vulgatttm  est  consuesse  euni  cum  Plotia  Hieria.  Sed 
Asconius  Pedianus  adfirmat  ipsain poslea  narrare  soliiam  invitatiim  qiiidem  a  Vario 
ad  communionem  sui,  verwn  tertinacissime  reciisasse. 


DIDO  205 

or  truer,  that  the  faithful  telling  of  it  by  Virgil  has 
contributed  to  the  development  of  the  moral  sense  of 
mankind. 

But  Virgil,  so  far  as  his  words  go,  lays  more  stress  on 
the  wrong  done  by  Aeneas  to  Rome,  upon  the  failure  in 
patriotism.  In  the  books  that  follow  there  is  little 
suggestion  that  Aeneas  thought  of  Dido  again  after  their 
meeting  in  the  lower  world. ^  Of  course,  it  might  be  urged 
that  the  vision  of  Dido  beyond  the  grave,  restored  to 
Sychaeus  and  at  peace,  has  in  it  some  hint  of  what  in  a 
tragedy  we  might  call  reconciliation,  but  this  might  be 
carrying  things  further  than  Virgil  really  went.  And 
again  it  might  be  replied  that,  if  the  poet  does  not  record, 
neither  should  he  record,  all  that  goes  on  in  his  hero's 
mind,  and  that  memories  of  Dido  would  be  irrelevant  in 
the  Italian  campaign.  Still  Dido  is  left  behind,  and  Rome 
is  the  first  concern  of  hero  and  poet ;  and  we  ask,  are 
they  right  as  to  the  supreme  importance  of  Rome  ?  Is 
it  true  that  Rome  is  also  the  first  thought  of  the  gods? 
Can  Rome  be  a  supreme  moral  issue  ?  Is  it  not  an 
external  thing,  essentially  ? 

We  have  to  allow  something  for  the  necessity  which  epic 
tradition  laid  upon  the  poet  of  representing  an  inward 
call  or  monition  as  an  immediate  instruction  from  an 
external  deity.  Virgil  himself  gives  us  a  hint  of  another 
psychology — 

Dine  hunc  ardorem  mentibus  addunt, 
Euryale,  an  sua  cuique  deus  fit  dira  cupido?  ^  (A.  ix.  184). 

But  in  general  he  must  stick  to  the  old  and  rather 
clumsy  way  of  Epic.  With  this  in  mind  we  shall  better 
understand  what  is  meant  by  the  reiterated  emphasis  on 
the    fact,   that   the   quest  of  Rome   is    laid    upon    Aeneas 

^  It  may  partly  be  due  to  the  irregular  way  in  which  Virgil  worked  here  and 
there  at  his  poem  as  he  pleased.  Suet.  v.  Verg.  23  Aeneida  prosa  prius  oratione 
formatam  digestanique  in  xii  libros  partindatim  coniponere  instituit,  prout  liberet 
qxiidque  et  nihil  in  ordinetn  arripiens. 

*  "Is  it  the  gods,  Euryalus,  that  make  men's  hearts  glow  thus?  or  does 
each  one's  ungovemed  yearning  become  his  god  ?  "  (Conington). 


2o6  VIRGIL 

from  without.  He  tells  us  that  it  is  under  compulsion 
he  leaves  Carthage — 

Italiam  non  sponte  sequor. 

It  is  the  bidding  of  the  divine  voice — of  many  divine  voices. 
There  is,  however,  many  readers  will  urge,  in  the  anguish 
of  Dido  a  voice  as  divine  as  any  brought  by  Mercury  to 
Aeneas  bidding  him  seek  Ital\\  Has  the  poet  then  failed 
here?  If  he  has,  to  be  fair  to  him,  it  is  partly  his  own 
truthfulness  that  has  let  us  see  it. 

It  looks  at  first  as  if  the  gods  set  the  foundation  of  Rome 
before  everything,  and  cared  no  jot  for  Dido's  pain.  So  the 
poet  seems  to  assure  us ;  but  he  knows  quite  well  that  it  is 
not  so.  He  is  too  just  a  thinker  and  too  great  a  poet  not  to 
know  it.  He  knows,  too,  how  little  such  things  as  names 
and  places,  in  spite  of  all  their  appeal,  really  are,  as  opposed 
to  the  virtues  and  the  character  which  are  the  foundation  of 
all  society.  And  yet  Dido's  anguish  seems  to  suggest  that 
the  gods  think  more  of  seven  hills  beside  a  river  than  of 
human  woe  or  of  right  and  wrong.     What  are  we  to  say  ? 

Once  more  it  seems  we  have  slipped  back  into  the 
consideration  of  Dido,  and  once  more  we  have  to  brace 
ourselves  to  look  beyond.  This  is  not  to  ignore  Dido.  New 
thoughts  upon  character  and  righteousness  gleam  from 
Virgil's  work,  and  by  the  light  they  shed  we  must  read  it. 
Dido's  story,  with  everything  involved  and  implied  in 
it,  comes  from  the  poet's  heart,  and  it  is  not  to  be  brushed 
aside.  The  quest  of  Aeneas  has  indeed  suggestions  of 
the  arbitrary  about  it — why  the  town  must  be  on  the 
Tiber  is  not  explained  ;  that  is  a  sore  gap  which  it  is 
hard  to  fill,  and  until  it  is  filled,  the  ways  of  the  gods 
will  not  be  justified  to  the  thoughtful  reader.  Yet  a 
man's  task,  however  realized,  when  once  it  is  realized,  leaves 
him  no  choice.  That  Aeneas  must  go,  we  see.  The  sense 
of  the  inevitable  task  to  be  fulfilled,  whatever  the  cost, — 
that  also  comes  from  Virgil's  heart.  The  collision  of 
the  two  lives  and  the  wreckage  are  of  the  essence  of 
tragedy  ;  and  that  Dido's  story  is  tragedy,  we  saw  from 
the    beginning.     In    every   tragedy    there   is    an   incompre- 


DIDO  207 

hensible  element — but  in  this  one  the  part  played  by 
the  gods  is  less  intelligible  than  we  feel  we  have  a  right 
to  expect,  for  their  purpose — the  planting  of  a  city  in 
a  certain  place — seems  but  little  connected  with  moral  issues. 
Yet  for  Aeneas  there  is  a  moral  issue,  and  it  is  clear — 
whether  it  is  intelligible  or  not  duty  must  be  done.  Italiavi 
non  sponte  scquor — but  he  follows. 


CHAPTER  IX 
THE   INTERPRETATION    OF   LIFE— 2.   AENEAS 

Ducimus  autem 
hos  quoque  felices,  qui  ferre  incommoda  vitae 
nee  iactare  iugum  vita  didicere  magistra. — Juvenal,  xiii.  20. 

CHARLES  JAMES  FOX,  writing  to  his  friend 
Trotter,  speaks  of  the  Aeneid  thus  :  "  Though  the 
detached  parts  of  the  Aeneid  appear  to  me  to  be 
equal  to  anything,  the  story  and  characters  appear  more  faulty 
every  time  I  read  it.  My  chief  objection  (I  mean  that 
to  the  character  of  Aeneas)  is  of  course  not  so  much  felt 
in  the  three  first  books ;  but  afterwards  he  is  always  either 
insipid  or  odious ;  sometimes  excites  interest  against  him, 
and  never  for  him."  The  student  of  Virgil  may  turn  to 
Dr  Henry's  tremendous  vindication  of  the  phrase  Sum  pius 
Aeneas  (i.  381),  to  which  Fox  takes  especial  exception,  and 
if  Dr  Henry  does  not  satisfy  him,  he  can  read  Marlowe's 
Dido  Queen  of  Carthage ;  and  from  the  Elizabethan  Aeneas 
let  him  go  back  to  Virgil's  hero,  and  consider  whether  after 
all  he  is  not  at  once  more  natural,  more  manly,  and  more 
attractive.^ 

But  Fox's  criticism  is  one  to  which  it  is  probable  that 
a  large  number  of  Virgil's  readers  will  subscribe,  and  we 
are  forced  to  ask  ourselves  whether  it  is  just ;  whether 
it  is  possible  that  Virgil's  highest  conception  of  manhood 
is  really  so  worthless .-'  Or  even  if  we  suppose  Fox  to 
use  the  words  "  insipid "  and  "  odious  "  with  something  of 
the  exaggeration  of  Jane  Austen's  beaux,  must  we  confess 
that  Aeneas  is  still  fundamentally  a  failure }  By  lightly 
accepting  such  a  judgement  we  should  probably  lose 
something   which   the   poet   felt    intensely   to   be    vital    to 

^  Henry,  Aeneidea,  i.  647  ii. 
208 


1 


AENEAS  209 

himself  and  to  everybody.     Virgil    has   a    right  to  require 
us  to  make  some  attempt  to  discover  this. 


Probably  no  one  has  ever  read  Homer  and  Virgil  without 
remarking  the  broad  gulf  between  their  two  heroes.  Every 
one  recognizes  at  once  the  intense  and  true  humanity  of 
Achilles.  There  is  no  doubt  that  he  is  a  real  man,  and,  as 
is  usual  with  the  creations  of  a  great  poet,  we  like  our  kind 
better  because  Homer  has  shown  us  Achilles.  We  are 
reconciled  to  life  and  death,  and  have  something  of  Ben 
Ezra's  feeling — "  Thanks  that  I  was  a  man."  Aeneas  is  not 
the  natural  man.  Ii£..r.epries.ents^a^_stage  at  once  beyond 
and  behind  that  of  Achilles.  He  has  seen  a  great  deal 
more  of  Iffe,  he  has  felt  the  lifting  of  a  great  purpose,  he  is 
part  of  a  larger  world.  He  is  at  once  an  older  man  than 
Achilles  and  the  child  of  a  later  age  of  mankind.  In  the 
interval  between  the  fall  of  Troy  and  his  arrival  in  Italy  he 
has  seen  many  more  cities  than  Odysseus  saw  and  learnt 
the  minds  of  many  more  men,  and  these  many  minds  have 
confused  him.  He  is  a  dreamer,  and  where  Achilles  looked 
straight  before  him,  Aeneas  "  thinks  of  many  things,"  ^  and 
amongst  them  there  are  some  which  remain  for  him 
unresolved  mysteries.  He  has  a  mission  ;  he  is  a  pilgrim  ; 
he  knows  that  heaven  has  a  purpose  for  him.  Ego  poscor 
Olympo  2  is  deeply  imprinted  in  his  consciousness,  but  the 
inner  meaning  of  the  call  of  Olympus  he  has  not  reached. 
Achilles,  like  the  rest  of  us,  has  to  face  the  problems  of  life, 
but  for  him  there  are  no  such  riddles  as  this  which  confuses 
Aeneas. 

For  though  Aeneas  can  explain  to  others  where  he  is 
going  and  that  it  is  the  will  of  the  gods,  he  does  not  seem 
able  to  make  it  clear  to  himself.  He  knows  that  he  is  to 
seek  Italy,  but  in  spite  of  his  abundance  of  revelations  he  is 
outside  the  counsel  of  the  gods.  He  needs  from  time  to 
time  the  hand  of  heaven  to  push  him  forward.  His  quest 
is  not  a  spiritual  or  inward  necessity  to  him.     Crete,  Epirus, 

1  A.  vi.  332  ;  cf.  iv.  390.  8  .-/.  viii,  533. 

14 


2IO  VIRGIL 

Sicily,  or  even  Carthage  would  have  satisfied  himself.  That 
he  was  not  to  rest  till  he  reached  Italy  was  no  part  of  his 
conviction.  The  Pilgrim  Fathers  knew  why  the  Mayflower 
crossed  the  Atlantic,  and  they  knew  what  they  meant  to 
find  at  or  near  Plymouth  Rock — or  some  other  rock ;  the 
place  was  immaterial,  but  the  impulse  which  drove  them 
westward  they  felt,  no  doubt,  to  come  from  heaven,  and 
they  understood  it.  They  might  not  see  all  that  would 
follow,  but  they  had  that  priceless  gift  which  their  descen- 
dants have  never  lost  for  long — a  conviction  of  a  future, 
which  would  be  the  necessary  spiritual  outcome  of  their 
principles.  This  Aeneas  had  not  consciously,  and  though 
Virgil  clearly  means  that  the  Roman  Empire  is  the  outcome 
of  character  of  the  type  of  his  hero's,  this  want  of  clearness 
and  conviction  tends  to  mar  a  fine  conception.  Would  he, 
for  instance,  so  soon  have  yielded  to  Dido  if  Italy  had  been 
a  spiritual  necessity  ?  But  this,  of  course,  it  could  not  be, 
for  there  was  nothing  as  yet  that  it  could  suggest  to  him. 
Italy  was  a  region,  it  was  not  an  idea.^ 

Then  again,  we  do  not  see  the  whole  of  Aeneas.  It  was 
not  the  Roman  character  to  show  feeling,  nor  would  it 
perhaps  have  been  natural  for  a  man,  schooled  by  so  long 
a  course  of  affliction,  to  lay  bare  his  heart.  In  any  case 
Aeneas  does  not  often  do  it.  We  see  him  in  despair  for  a 
moment  in  the  storm,  but  never  again  does  he  betray  such 
weakness.  He  feels  other  people's  sorrows  keenly  enough, 
but  they  do  not  throw  him  off  his  balance.  Once,  in  the 
parting  with  Dido,  feeling  seems  to  surge  up  and  demand 
expression,  but  it  is  instantly  repressed — 

Desine  meque  tuis  incendere  teque  querellis  ^  (^A.  iv.  360). 

The  word  incendere  shows  his  thought.  Dido's  words  must 
rouse  passion ;  and  passion,  he  feels,  helps  nothing  forward, 
and  he  dreads  it.  This  to  the  modern  reader  is  one  of  the 
weaknesses  in  the  character  of  Aeneas — there  seems  to  be 
no  passion  there.     It  has  been  stamped  out,  or  so  nearly 

^  The  faint  tales  that  his  remote  ancestors  came  from  Italy  are  of  little  conse- 
quence.    They  are  in  A.  iii.  94-6  ;  163-8. 

*  "  Cease  thou  to  set  me  on  fire,  to  set  thyself  on  fire  with  these  regrets." 


AENEAS 


21  I 


Stamped  out  as  to  rob  him  of  almost  all  that  play  of  mood 
and  feeling  which  is  one  of  the  essentially  human  things. 
Half  his  humanity  is  lost  by  his  self-suppression,  for  it  is  so 
effectually  done  that  we  do  not  realize  that  there  was  any 
struggle  within  him.  And  a  great  part  of  the  value  of  a 
man  to  us  is  our  realizing,  without  his  telling  us,  that  he  is 
victor  in  such  a  struggle.^ 

The  result  of  Aeneas'  subjection  to  heaven,  and  his  conse- 
quent suppression  of  feeling  (so  far  as  his  experience  left 
any  capacity  for  feeling  which  might  need], to  be  suppressed), 
is  that  he  has  lost  the  air  of  life.  He  has  not  enough 
freedom  of  will.  There  are  indeed  such  people  to  be  met 
with  in  the  world,  but  they  rarely  interest  us.^ 

To  sum  up,  Achilles  satisfies  us,  because  at  every  point 
we  feel  that  he  is  a  man ;  he  thinks,  he  feels,  he  suffers  as 
a  man  ;  and  his  experience,  deep  and  intense  as  it  is,  is  the 
common  lot  of  humanity,  felt  and  interpreted  by  a  poet. 
Aeneas  does  not  so  readily  satisfy  us,  for  his  experience, 
though  not  improbable,  indeed  though  highly  probable  and 
often  enough  actually  true,  is  not  entirely  interpreted  to  us. 
There  remains  something  unintelligible  about  him. 

The  character  of  Aeneas  then  is  so  far  a  failure,^  for  want 
of  completeness  and  conviction,  but  a  failure  which  threw 
into  the  shade  every  poetic  success  between  Euripides  and 
Dante  ;  a  failure  which  opened  for  poetry  for  all  time  a  door 
into  a  new  world,  which  brought  under  poetry's  survey 
great  conceptions,  unthought  and  almost  unfelt  before,  of 
man  the  agent  of  heaven,  attempting  and  achieving  acts 
small  in  themselves  but  of  incredible  consequence  for  man- 
kind ;  of  a  divine  purpose  and  providence,  in  the  least  as  in 
the  largest  things,  working  through  individual  suffering  the 
general  good  ;  and  of  something  like  a  mutual  intelligibility 

*  Nay,  when  the  fight  begins  within  himself 
A  man  's  worth  something, 

says  Browning's  Blougram. 

*  -Vnd  yet  after  ten  years  more  of  life — I  will  not  attempt  autobiography,  but 
Aeneas  seems  a  more  intelligible  and  sympathetic  cliaracter.  Years  ago,  I 
remember  Mr  R.  A.  Neil,  of  Pembroke  College,  suggesting  that  Virgil  was  no 
author  for  a  healthy  boy. 

*  I  do  not  like  to  say  this  ;  I  hope  the  reader  will  not  press  the  word. 


212  VIRGIL 

of  man  and  God,  a  community  of  purpose,  perhaps  even 
a  spiritual  unity.  These  things  are  not  indeed  worked  out 
adequately  in  the  Aetieid,  but  they  are  suggested  or  implied. 
The  poet  has  caught  sight  of  them  and  is  quickened  by  the 
sight,  but  at  times  it  comes  over  him  that  he  may  be 
deceived.  Hence  there  is  a  wavering  and  an  uncertainty 
about  the  whole  poem,  a  feeling  of  pain  and  suspense — 

aut  videt  aut  vidisse  putat  per  nubila^  {A.  vi.  454). 

Aeneas  is  not  at  all  a  hero  of  the  type  of  Achilles,  and  if 
we  come  to  the  A eneid  yNXth.  preconceived  opinions  of  what 
the  hero  of  an  epic  should  be,  we  run  the  risk  of  disappoint- 
ment and  also  of  losing  Virgil's  judgement  upon  human  life. 
Virgil  obviously  did  not  intend  to  make  a  copy  of  Homer's 
Achilles  or  of  any  of  Homer's  heroes.  That  was  a  feat  to 
be  left  to  Ouintus  of  Smyrna.  If,  as  it  is,  there  is  an  air  of 
anachronism  about  Virgil's  Aeneas,  there  would  have  been 
a  far  profounder  anachronism  about  him  if  in  the  age  of 
Augustus  he  had  been  a  real  Homeric  hero.  The  world,  as 
we  have  seen,  had  moved  far  since  Homer's  day.  Plato's 
repudiation  of  Homer  meant  that  a  new  outlook  and  new 
principles  were  needed  in  view  of  new  conditions  of  life  and 
the  new  thoughts  which  they  waked.  In  its  turn  the  impulse, 
with  which  we  connect  the  literature  of  Athens,  and  such 
names  as  Euripides,  Plato,  and  Aristotle,  was  itself  spent, 
though  not  before  it  had  made  an  imperishable  contribution 
to  the  growth  of  mankind.  The  world  was  awaiting  another 
fresh  impulse,  and,  till  this  should  come,  it  was  occupied  in 
analysing,  co-ordinating,  and  developing  its  existing  stock  of 
ideas,  not  without  some  consciousness  that  they  were  already 
inadequate. 

It  was  at  this  moment  that  Virgil  wrote,  and  as  he  was  a 
poet  rather  than  a  mere  scholar  or  antiquary,  he  sought  to 
bring  his  Aeneas  into  connexion  with  his  own  age,  while, 
if  possible,  still  keeping  him  a  Homeric  hero.  It  was  hardly 
to  be  done.  If  Aeneas  as  the  ideal  hero  was  to  be  "  heir  of 
all  the  ages,"  it  would  be  difficult  to  keep  the  simplicity  of 
Homer's  outlook  and  philosophy.     Aeneas  could  not  stand 

^  "  He  sees— or  else  he  thinks  he  saw — through  the  mist." 


AENEAS  213 

in  Achilles'  relation  to  men.  He  must  have  new  virtues 
which  had  been  discovered  since  Homer's  day,  if  he  was  to 
be  a  hero  near  the  hearts  of  Virgil's  contemporaries — the 
new  private  virtues  which  Menander  and  Cleanthes  and 
many  more  were  finding  out,  and  the  new  political  virtues 
which  Alexander  and  the  Ptolemies,  Julius  and  Augustus, 
were  revealing  to  the  world.  Aeneas,  again,  could  not  stand 
ill  Achilles'  relation  to  heaven.  The  gods  no  longer  came 
among  men  in  bodily  form,  they  were  far  away ;  and  yet 
perhaps  they  were  not  so  very  far  away  after  all — 

deum  namque  ire  per  om-nes.^ 

This  is  another  reason  why  Aeneas  does  not  appeal  to  us 
as  Achilles  does.  The  fusion  of  the  Homeric  and  the 
modern  types  is  not  complete.  Virgil's  Aeneas  is  two 
heroes  in  one,  perhaps  more,  for  beside  the  Homeric  hero 
and  the  modern  hero  one  feels  sometimes  that  we  have 
another  creature,  which  is  not  a  hero  at  all,  but  an  idea,^  an 
allegory  of  a  virtue,  and  a  political  virtue  at  that,  partially 
incarnated. 

It  is  true,  of  course,  that  Virgil  did  not  put  the  last  touches 
to  his  poem  ;  but  it  is  not  clear  that,  even  if  he  had,  the 
character  of  Aeneas  could  have  been  given  the  final  and 
convincing  unity. 

To  understand  the  character  and  the  poem  of  which 
it  is  the  centre,  it  will  be  helpful  to  analyse  the  various 
elements  in  Aeneas.  In  this  process  we  shall  necessarily 
lose  our  consciousness  of  what  we  have  felt  to  be  the 
great  defect  of  the  hero,  his  want  of  unity,  and  we  shall 
probably  gain  a  clearer  notion  of  what  the  poet  intended. 


II 

First  of  all,  there  is  Aeneas  conceived  as  a  Homeric  hero. 
Aeneas  has  of  course  the  heroic  manner,  in  measure,  but 
not  quite  the  manner  of  Homeric  heroes,  a  more  magnificent, 

^  G.  iv.  221,  "for  God  pervades  all." 

»  Goethe's  word.  He  told  Eckermann  (Oct.  29,  1823)  "You  must  do  some 
degree  of  violence  to  yourself  to  get  out  of  the  idea." 


214  VIRGIL 

a  more  courtly  manner.  He  has  the  wealth  of  the  Homeric 
hero,  and  his  habit  of  giving  splendid  presents  and  receiving 
|them.  At  times,  Virgil  would  have  us  think,  he  feels  the 
same  wild  delight  in  battle  which  we  find  in  Homer's 
heroes.  "  Lie  there  now,  terrible  one !  No  mother's  love 
shall  lay  thee  in  the  sod,  or  place  thy  limbs  beneath 
thine  heavy  ancestral  tomb.  To  birds  of  prey  shalt  thou 
be  left,  or  borne  down  in  the  eddying  water,  where  hungry 
fish  shall  suck  thy  wounds."  ^  This  is  what  Virgil  remembers 
to  have  read  in  the  Iliad;  he  blends  what  Odysseus  says  to 
Socus  with  the  words  of  Achilles  to  Lycaon.^  But  the 
club  has  not  been  wrested  from  Hercules ;  ^  the  words  are 
still  Homer's  ;  they  do  not  belong  to  Aeneas.  Again,  the 
reservation  of  eight  captured  youths  to  be  sacrificed  to  the 
Manes  of  Pallas  *  can  be  defended  by  the  Homeric  parallel 
of  Achilles  slaying  Trojans  over  the  pyre  of  Patroclus  ^  and 
by  more  awful  contemporary  parallels,  but  still  it  is  not  con- 
vincing. Augustus  may  have  ordered  or  performed  a  human 
sacrifice ;  ^  but  when  Virgil  transfers  this  to  Aeneas,  the 
reader  feels  the  justice  of  Aristotle's  paradox  :  "  there  is  no 
reason  why  some  events  that  have  actually  happened  should 
not  conform  to  the  law  of  the  probable  and  possible." '' 
This  may  have  been  an  actual  event,  but  it  is  not  "  probable  " 
here. 

But  perhaps  the  most  incongruous  Homeric  touch  in 
Virgil's  story  of  Aeneas  is  the  beautifying  of  the  hero  by 
his  mother  to  enable  him  unconsciously  to  win  Dido.  That 
Aeneas  is  "  like  a  god  in  face  and  shoulders  "  we  can  well 
believe ;  but  the  addition  of  the  "  purple  light  of  youth  "  '^  to 
a  man  of  years,  "  long  tossed  on  land  and  sea,"  worn  to 
grandeur  by  war  and  travel,  is  surely  a  triumph  of  imitation 
over  imagination. 

1  A.  X,  557  (Mackail).  *  //.  xi.  452,  and  xxi.  122. 

*  Cf.  the  saying  of  Virgil  in  the  Life  by  Suetonius,  c.  46  ;  and  Macrobius, 
Satuitialia,  v.  3,  16.     Cf.  p.  59. 

■*  xi.  81  vinxerat  et  post  terga  maims,  qiios  mitteret  unihris  \  r'n/enas,  caeso 
Sparsurus  sanguine  Jianimas  ;  cf.  x.  517-20. 

*  //.  xxiii.  22-3.  In  11.  175-6  Dr  Leaf  finds  a  "moral  condemnation  of 
the  act"  by  the  poet  possible,  though  not  inevitable,  in  the  Greek — ko-ko.  8i 
<pp€ffl  /UTjSero  epya. 

«  Suet.  Aug.  15.  '  Poetics,  ix.  9.  »  A.  i.  58S. 


AENEAS  215 

This  perhaps  will  be  best  realized  if  we  consider  for  a 
moment  the  passage,  or  passages,  in  the  Odyssey  which 
Virgil  had  in  mind.  Twice  Athene  changes  the  aspect  of 
Odysseus.  First,  at  his  meeting  with  Nausicaa,  the  goddess, 
after  his  bath,  "  made  him  greater  and  more  mighty  to 
behold,  and  from  his  head  caused  deep  curling  locks  to  flow, 
like  the  hyacinth  flower  .  .  .  Then  to  the  shore  of  the  sea  went 
Odysseus  apart,  and  sat  down,  glowing  in  beauty  and  grace, 
and  the  princess  marvelled  at  him."  ^  And  very  naturally, 
for  she  was  a  young  girl,  and  the  goddess  knew  it,  and  made 
her  appeal  to  the  imagination  in  a  true  and  natural  way. 

Again,  when  Odysseus  makes  himself  known  to  his  wife, 
the  poet  uses  the  very  words,  and  the  simile  that  follows 
them,  once  again.  Penelope  "  sat  down  over  against  Odysseus 
in  the  light  of  the  fire.  Now  he  was  standing  by  the  tall 
pillar,  looking  down  and  waiting  to  know  if  perchance  his 
noble  wife  would  speak  to  him  when  her  eyes  beheld  him. 
But  she  sat  long  in  silence,  and  amazement  came  upon  her 
soul,  and  now  she  would  look  upon  him  steadfastly  with 
her  eyes,  and  now  again  she  knew  him  not."  Odysseus  with- 
draws, and  bathes,  and  comes  back,  and  "  Athene  shed  great 
beauty  from  his  head  downwards,  and  [made  him]  greater 
and  more  mighty  to  behold,  and  from  his  head  caused  deep 
curling  locks  to  flow,  like  the  hyacinth  flower."  ^  Once 
more  it  is  an  appeal  to  the  imagination.  Penelope  has  still 
a  final  test  to  make  before  she  will  be  sure,  but  in  her  mind 
she  sees  her  husband  as  he  was  twenty  years  before,  young, 
strong  and  tall,  as  she  had  always  pictured  him  during  the 
long  years  of  his  absence.     Homer  is  justified. 

But  is  Virgil  justified  ?  People  tell  us  that  youth  and 
beauty  are  not  without  their  appeal  to  women  in  middle 
life  or  toward  it,  but  the  reader  can  hardly  think  of  Dido 
as  Venus  would  seem  to  have  done.  She  was  not  Nausicaa. 
Nor  can  the  poet  claim  Homer's  plea  in  the  second  case,  for 
Aeneas  and  Dido  had  never  met  before.^     In  fact,  it  is  a 

^  Odyssey  vi.  229  f.  ^  Odyssey,  xxiii.  156. 

3  It  may  be  objected  that  Teucer  had  told  Dido  of  Aeneas  long  before  (^.  i. 
619,  a  point  made  by  Heinze,  Vergils  epische  Technik,  p.  1 19),  and  that  there  was 
a  picture  of  Aeneas  in  Dido's  temple  i^A.  i.  488).  It  will  hardly  be  maintained 
that  it  can  have  been  a  photographic  likeness. 


2i6  VIRGIL 

piece  of  imitation,  dull  and  unconvincing,  as  nearly  all  the 
purely  Homeric  touches  are  in  the  character  and  the  story 
of  Aeneas.i 

III 

Virgil's  Aeneas  implies  a  new  relation  to  heaven.  While 
the  whole  question  of  Olympus  and  the  gods  will  have  to 
be  reserved  for  separate  treatment  at  more  length,  it  will 
be  convenient  to  anticipate  a  few  points  of  importance. 

Greek  thinkers  had  moved,  and  brought  mankind  with 
them,  beyond  the  Olympus  of  Homer.  Men  no  longer 
might  expect  to 

Have  sight  of  Proteus  rising  from  the  sea, 
Or  hear  old  Triton  blow  his  wreathed  horn. 

There  was  a  gain,  however,  in  their  loss,  for  it  was  a 
deepening  consciousness  of  the  real  character  of  the  Divine 
nature  that  carried  men  away  from  Olympus  to  look  for 
divinity  in  a  higher  region.  The  divine  was  more  remote, 
but  it  was  more  divine.  It  had  less  contact  with  humanity, 
but  it  was  freer  from  the  weaknesses  and  the  vices  of 
humanity.  It  was  perhaps  less  interested  in  the  individual, 
but  it  might  exercise  a  wider  and  a  firmer  power  over  the 
universe. 

The  Homeric  gods,  in  accordance  with  epic  usage,  had  to 
watch  over  Aeneas,  but  they  were  gods  in  whom  no  one 
really  believed.  Hence  Virgil  handles  them  with  a  caution 
that  excludes  warmth.  Though  Aeneas  is  favoured  with  one 
theophany  after  another,  and  is  for  the  while  re-assured  by 
them,  he  is  not  on  such  easy  terms  with  the  gods  as  was 
Achilles.  He  sees  them  less  frequently,  and  his  relations 
are  more  formal.  In  fact,  the  complete  rejection  of  the 
Homeric  pantheon  by  educated  people  in  favour  of  eastern 
religion  or  Greek  philosophy  was  too  strong  for  the  poet.^ 

Yet  Virgil  is   far  from  refusing  the  idea  of  some  divine 

^  Sainte-Beauve  has  some  excellent  criticism  on  this  episode  of  the  beautifica- 
tion.     Etude  sur  Virgile,  274-6. 

^  Cf.  Sainte-Beauve,  Etude  sur  Virgile,  p.  276:  "  Avec  lui  (Virgil)  on  est 
deja  dans  la  mythologie  ;  avec  Homere  on  etait  dans  la  religion." 


AENEAS  217 

government  of  the  world.  Some  of  the  philosophers  had 
rejected  the  Homeric  theology,  just  because  it  did  not 
sufficiently  relate  the  world  to  the  gods.  They  traced 
the  world's  origin  back  to  divine  intelligence ;  they  re- 
cognized the  diviner  element  in  man's  nature,  his  power 
of  remembering  and  re-discovering  the  divine  "  ideas  "  ;  and 
they  leant  to  a  belief  in  the  moral  government  of  the 
universe.  With  the  gradual  direction  of  philosophy  to 
individual  life,  men  came  to  believe  in  a  personal  concern 
of  heaven  with  the  individual  man.  If  Fate  is  hard  and 
unrelenting,  it  has  recognized  the  individual,  and  on  the 
whole  the  individual  may  accept  it  without  resentment. 
Hence  Cleanthes  bade  Fate  lead  him  in  the  destined  way 
and  he  would  be  fearless,  though,  as  he  reminded  himself 
meanwhile,  there  was  no  question  about  his  following.^ 
Man  is  thus  entirely  dependent  upon  the  divine,  and  of 
this  Aeneas  is  always  conscious.  It  was,  however,  a  con- 
sciousness never  before  presented  in  poetry,  and  Virgil, 
in  loyalty  to  the  traditions  of  the  epic,  endeavoured  to 
present  it  by  the  means  of  the  old,  incredible  Homeric  gods. 
This  was  indeed  to  pour  new  wine  into  old  bottles,  with 
the  inevitable  result. 

This  idea  of  Destiny,  perhaps  of  Providence,  is  the 
dominant  one  in  Virgil,  and  it  is  one  of  the  things  in  which 
he  is  furthest  from  Homer. 

Destiny,  as  M.  Boissier  remarks,  has  its  place  in  Homer. 
His  heroes  often  know  well  that  they  are  doomed  to  fall, 
but  as  a  rule  they  forget  it  and  act  as  if  they  had  not  the 
knowledge.  The  action  is  only  now  and  again  darkened 
by  the  shadow  of  Fate,  but  in  general  we  have  the  free 
development  of  the  individual's  story,  as  he  carelessly 
abandons  himself  to  the  fever  of  life,  and  forgets  the 
menaces  of  the  future  in  the  interests  of  the  present.^ 
The   same    idea    is    well    developed    by    M.    Girard    in    his 

^  'A701'  Se  fi  w  ZeO  Kai  <tv  y  77  ncirpwfj.evrj 

diroi  nod'  vfiiv  et/xi  diareraynevoi' 

uis  txpofiai  y  doKvos'  rjv  di  fir)  de\o) 

KaKbs  yevcuevos  ovdiv  Tjcrjov  e\l/o/J.ai., 
Cleanthes  a/>.  Epictetus,  Matiual,  52,  end  of  book. 
*  La  Religion  rotiiaine,  i.  p.  244. 


2i8  VIRGIL 

chapter  on  "  Man  in  Homer  and  Hesiod."  In  particular 
he  instances  Hector  leaving  child  and  wife  for  a  death 
he  foresaw,  but  the  prevailing  tone  of  the  poem  he  finds, 
with  Arnold,  in  the  words  of  Sarpedon  to  Glaucus — 

vvv  8   e/jLTrrjg  yap  Krjpe^  €(pecrTaaiv  Oavdroio 
fxvpiai,  a?  ovK  eaTi  (pvyeiv  ^porov  ov6   vTraXv^ai, 
'lo/xev,  rj6  TOO  ev)(0'i  ope^o/xev  rji  Ti9  t]ij.lv.^ 

The  Greek  and  the  Trojan  heroes  in  the  Iliad  recognize 
Destiny  well  enough,  but  they  make  up  their  own  minds, 
and  are  ready  to  accept  the  consequences.  They  survey 
the  world  for  themselves,  look  facts  well  in  the  face,  and 
then  shape  their  own  courses.  If  the  gods  intervene,  these 
calculations  may  ,be  upset,  it  is  true,  but  this  is  accident 
after  all. 

Aeneas,  on  the  contrary,  is  entirely  in  the  hands  of 
heaven,  and  for  guidance  keeps  his  eyes  fixed  on  superior 
powers.  He  resigns  himself  to  Providence  as  a  willing, 
if  not  entirely  intelligent,  agent.  Wherever  his  great  quest 
is  concerned,  he  is  a  man  of  prayer,  anxiously  waiting  for 
a  sign  from  heaven,  which  never  fails  him.  It  is  the 
attitude  of  the  Roman  general  taking  the  auspices. 

Haud  equidem  sine  mente,  reor,  sine  numine  divom 
adsumus  et  portus  delati  intramus  amicos  ^  {^A.  v.  56). 

So  says  Aeneas,  when  wind  and  storm  drive  him  out  of 
his  course,  and  land  him  at  his  father's  grave  in  Sicily. 
Delati  is  the  whole  story  of  his  voyage  in  one  word — an 
involuntary  quest,  perpetually  over-ruled  by  a  somewhat 
unintelligible  divine  will,  but  with  a  happy  result.  The 
hero,  like  a  Christian  saint,  has  surrendered  his  own  will, 
though  not  with  the  same  restfulness  of  mind.^ 

^  Girard,  Le  Senfi/neni  religievx  en  Grece,  pp.  70-5  ;  Arnold,  On  Translating 
Homer,  p.  18;  Iliad  yM.  310-28.  "But  now  a  thousand  fates  of  death  stand 
over  us,  which  mortal  man  may  not  flee  from  nor  avoid  ;  then  let  us  on,  and 
give  a  glory,  or  obtain  it  ourselves  "  (Purves). 

2  "Not  in  truth,  I  deem,  without  the  thought  or  the  will  of  the  gods  are  we 
here,  driven  as  we  are  into  a  friendly  haven."     Years  add  beauty  to  such  a  couplet. 

*  TTOioO^'Tes  7dp  TO  OeXijfxa  rod  Xpio-roi)  evpTja-o/j.eu  dpa-n-avcnv  is  a  Christian  saying 
of  the  second  century.     It  is  in  the  homily  known  as  Second  Clement,  6,  7. 


AENEAS  219 

Aeneas  then  is  the  chosen  vessel  of  Destiny  from  first 
to  last — fata  profugus  •,'^  he  is  guided  by  fate  throughout 
all  his  wanderings — 

Nate  dea,  quo  fata  trahunt  retrahuntquc  sequamur  ; 
quidquid  erit,  superanda  omnis  fortuna  ferendo  est  {A.  v. 
709), 

says  one  of  his  captains.^  He  so  entirely  subordinates 
himself  to  Fate,  and,  in  spite  of  Virgil's  showing  him  to  us 
"this  way  and  that  dividing  the  swift  mind,"  he  so  fre- 
quently looks  to  divine  intervention  rather  than  to  re- 
flection and  resolution,  that  the  reader  feels  that  life  is 
after  all  made  plain  to  him  even  if  it  is  not  easy,  and  that 
his  pilgrimage  is  tedious  rather  than  dark  or  perplexing. 

It  was  a  Roman  conviction  that  Rome  was  under  the 
special  care  of  heaven — a  belief  which  great  Roman  generals 
extended  to  cover  their  own  personal  fortunes.  "  It  was 
not  by  numbers,"  says  Cicero,  "  that  we  overcame  the 
Spaniards,  nor  by  our  strength  the  Gauls,  the  Carthaginians 
by  our  cunning,  or  the  Greeks  by  our  arts,  nor  lastly  was 
it  by  that  sense,  which  is  the  peculiar  and  natural  gift  of 
this  race  and  land,  that  we  overcame  the  Italians  themselves 
and  the  Latins  ;  but  by  piety  {pietas)  and  by  regard  for 
the  divine  {religio),  and  by  this  sole  wisdom — our  recog- 
nition that  all  things  are  ruled  and  directed  by  the  will 
of  the  immortal  gods — by  these  things  we  have  overcome  all 
races  and  peoples."  ^ 

As  this  utterance  is  from  a  speech,  we  may  take  it  to 
represent  the  belief  rather  of  Cicero's  audience  than  of 
himself,  and  this  assumption  is  confirmed  by  similar  language 
addressed  to  the  Romans  by  Horace.*  Probably  Virgil 
shared  this  popular  feeling  more  than  either  Cicero  or 
Horace  could,  and  consistently  with  his  habit  of  showing 
the  future  in  the  past,  the  spiritual  sequence  of  events  from 

^  A.  i.  2,  "an  exile  of  destiny. " 

'  "  Goddess-born  whither  Fate  draws  us,  onward  or  backward,  let  us  follow  ; 
come  what  may,  every  chance  must  be  overcome  by  bearing  it." 

'  Cicero,  de  Harusp.  Resp.  9.  19.  Cf.  Warde  Fowler,  Religious  Experience 
of  the  Roman  people,  pp.  249  ff.,  with  notes. 

*  Dis  te  minorem  qttod geris  iviperas,  and  other  utterances  of  the  kind. 


220  VIRGIL 

principles,  he  endows  Aeneas  with  this  thoroughly  Roman 
attitude  towards  the  gods.  Aeneas,  the  founder  of  the  race, 
like  all  his  most  eminent  descendants,  holds  the  belief  that 
his  country — for  he  calls  Italy  his  patria — is  beloved  and 
chosen  of  heaven  ;  like  them,  he  subordinates  himself  to 
heaven's  purpose  for  his  country,  and,  on  every  occasion, 
seeks  to  learn  at  once,  and  in  the  directest  possible  way, 
what  is  the  will  of  the  gods ;  and,  once  more  like  them,  he 
finds  that  heaven  never  fails  Rome. 

One  or  two  questions  naturally  rise  at  this  point.  We 
may  ask  whether  this  Roman  view,  that  Rome  is  the 
supreme  thing  for  which  Providence  should  care,  is  a  true 
one;  but  there  is  another  inquiry  which  bears  more  closely 
upon  Aeneas.  Has  he  any  real  conviction  that  the  gods 
care  for  him  ?  They  care  for  Rome — that  is  evident  enough 
— and  for  Aeneas  as  the  destined  founder  of  Rome.  But 
do  they  care  for  the  man  as  apart  from  the  agent  ?  ^  Does 
he  feel  that  they  care  for  him  .'' 

On  the  whole,  the  answer  is  fairly  clear.  No  one  could 
well  be  more  loyal  than  Aeneas  to  the  bidding  of  heaven, 
but  his  loyalty  gives  him  little  joy.  He  is  a  man  who  has 
known  affliction,  who  has  seen  the  gods  in  person  destroying 
what  he  had  loved  above  all  things — his  native  city  ;2  who 
has  been  driven,  and  expects  to  be  driven,  over  land  and 
sea  by  these  same  gods  to  a  goal  foreign  to  his  hopes  and 
affections.  He  realizes  that  in  the  end  some  advantage 
will  accrue  to  his  people,  or  their  descendants,  from  all  that 
he  undergoes,  and  he  is  willing  to  work  for  them.  Sorrow, 
it  will  be  seen,  has  not  cramped  him,  but  rather  has 
broadened  and  deepened  his  nature.  He  lives  for  others; 
and  because  he  is  told  that  the  planting  of  Rome  will  be 
a  blessing  to  his  people,  he  makes  Rome  "his  love  and  his 
country  " — 

hie  amor,  haec  patria  est  {^A.  iv.  346). 

If  his  comrades  grow  weary,  and  despair,  he  has  words  of 
hope   and    cheerfulness    for  them.     But    for   himself?      For 

^  Cicero's  Stoic  said  they  did.     Cf.  de  natura  deoriirn  ii.  65,  164. 
*  A.  ii.  608  f.,  622. 


AENEAS  22  1 

himself,  he  only  expects  the  repetition  of  the  past.  There 
is  little  comfort,  little  hope  for  himself.  Even  his  goddess- 
mother  seems  to  think  as  much  of  the  ultimate  Augustus 
as  of  her  son.  Does  any  one,  God  or  man,  think  about 
Aeneas  and  his  happiness .''  His  thoughts  are  ever  of  wars 
behind  him  and  wars  before  him  ;  and  he  hates  war.  He 
has  nothing  to  which  to  look  forward,  and  only  too  much  to 
which  to  look  back. 

Et  nimium  meminisse  necesse  est  ^  (A.  vi.  514). 
Infandum,  regina,  iubes  renovare  dolorem  ^  (^A.  ii.  3). 

And  with  these  thoughts  he  is  perhaps  the  most  solitary 
figure  in  literature. 

Virgil  is  true  here  to  human  experience,  for  with  his  story 
of  pain,  and  with  a  doubt  at  his  heart,  Aeneas  could  hardly 
be  other  than  he  is.  He  can  never  forget  the  story  he  tells 
to  Dido.^  The  poet  has  seized  the  meaning  of  the  fall  of 
Troy,  and  interpreted  it  in  this  quiet,  wounded,  self-obliter- 
ating man.  If  Virgil's  hand  shakes  here  and  there,  his 
picture,  as  he  saw  it  in  his  mind,  is  true.  Underneath  the 
trappings  of  the  Homeric  hero  is  the  warrior-sage,  who  has 
sounded  human  sorrow,  and  who,  though  he  cannot  solve 
the  riddle,  will  not  believe  that  all  is  vanity  and  a  striving 
after  wind. 

Virgil  is  anticipating  a  later  age,  and  Aeneas  resembles 
more  closely  the  character  of  Marcus  Aurelius  than  any 
other  in  classical  history.  "  Such  was  his  calm  that  neither 
sorrow  nor  joy  changed  his  expression,  devoted  as  he  was 
to   the  Stoic  philosophy."*     This    face  of  impassive    calm 

'   "  But  too  good  cause  is  there  to  remember." 

-  "  Too  cruel  to  be  told,  O  queen,  is  the  sorrow  you  bid  ir.e  revive." 
'  Aeneas'  words  to  Dido,  Aen.  iv.  340,  give  the  keynote  of  his  character. 
r/ie  si  fata  nicis  paterentiir  diicere  vitatn 
aiispiciis  et  sponte  mea  cotnponere  curas, 
urbem  Troianain  primiim  dtilcisque  meoruin 
reliqnias  colerctn,  Priami  tecla  alta  inancrent 
et  recidiva  manu  posnissem  Perga/na  victis. 
sed  nunc  Italiam,  etc. 
*  Erat  enim  ipse,  says  his  biographer  of  Marcus,  lantae  tranquillitatis  ttt  vultttm 
nunquaiit  viutaverit  niaerore  vel  gaiidio,  philosophiae  deditiis  Stoicae.     Hist,  Aug, 
M.  Anton.  16.     Cf.   ille  lovis  vionitis  iminota  tencbat  lumina  {A.  iv.   331).      It 
should  be  borne  in  mind  that  Aeneas'  eyes  were  natmaWy J'aci/es  {A.  viii.  310). 


222  VIRGIL 

was  the  index  of  the  mind  within,  unsatisfied  in  its  deepest 
longings  for  an  explanation  of  life,  yet  resolved  to  endure 
without  satisfaction  and  with  the  slightest  of  hope  to  work 
on  toward  an  impossible  goal.*  It  implied  a  conscious- 
ness of  the  inadequacy  of  all  conceptions  of  the  divine  yet 
achieved,  Virgil,  Suetonius  says,  meant  on  finishing  the 
A eneid  to  give  himself  to  philosophy.  Of  himself,  as  of  his 
hero,  the  words  are  true — 

per  mare  magnum 
Italiam  sequimur  fugientem  et  volvimur  undis^  {A.  v.  628). 


IV 

We  have  now  to  consider  Aeneas  as  influenced  by  the 
long  study  of  man  which  marks  the  centuries  between 
Pisistratus  and  Augustus.  We  must  begin  by  setting  aside 
the  elements  in  his  character  which  are  mere  external  imi- 
tations of  Homer,  and  also  the  episode  of  Dido,  which  has 
not  perhaps  in  the  Aeneid  its  proper  psychological  effect  on 
the  mind  of  Aeneas.^ 

Few  epithets  have  been  more  misconstrued  than  the 
untranslatable  pins,   which  Virgil   has    associated  with    the 

^  Cf.  Lecky,  European  Morals  i.  249-255  on  Marcus  Aurelius  and  his  solitude. 
"Seldom,"  he  says,  "has  such  active  and  unrelaxing  virtue  been  united  with  so 
little  enthusiasm  and  been  cheered  by  so  little  illusion  of  success." 

2  "Over  a  vast  sea  we  follow  a  flying  Italy  and  are  tossed  with  the  waves." 
Cf.  nos  ad  beatos  vela  }>iittiii!us partus  {Catalepton  5,  8)  and  note  the  contrast  of 

tone. 

3 1  quote  with  pleasure  the  suggestion  of  the  reviewer  in  the  Athenaeum  {4 
March  1905) :  "  Unconsciously,  perhaps,  but  with  profound  truth,  Virgil  draws 
Aeneas,  after  the  Carthaginian  episode,  as  always  careworn,  brave  in  action, 
but  pensive  in  reflection  ;  there  stands  between  him  and  his  past  the  shadow  of  a 
crime,  a  shadow  which  glares  but  will  not  speak  {A.  vi.  467-474)  and  turns 
away,  as  one  who  'does  her  true  love  know  from  another  one,'  to  rejoin 
Sychaeus  who  has  forgiven  her.  That  is  the  most  Virgilian  thing  in  all  Virgil." 
It  might  be  urged  that  the  first  book  shows  Aeneas  careworn  already,  but  the 
suggestion  deserves  study.  Mr  Warde  Fowler,  Religious  Experience  of  the  Roman 
People  (1911),  PP-  4io>  41"  suggests  that  "the  development  of  the  character  of 
Aeneas  under  stress  of  perils,  moral  and  material,  was  much  more  obvious  to  the 
Roman  than  it  is  to  us,  and  much  more  keenly  appreciated."  See  the  whole 
chapter.  "  The  character  of  Aeneas,"  he  holds,  "is  pivoted  on  religion."  Also 
cf.  his  remarks  on  book  v.  pp.  417,  418,  which  seem  to  me  to  come  nearer  the 
heart  of  the  thin    than  any  comment  I  recall  on  that  book. 


AENEAS  223 

name  of  Aeneas ;  yet  to  understand  it  thoroughly  is  neces- 
sary, if  we  are  to  have  a  clear  comprehension  of  the  whole 
poem.  What  is  pictas  ?  It  is  not  merely  "  piety,"  for  that 
is  only  a  part  of  its  connotation,  nor  is  it  enough  to  add 
"  pity  "  to  "  piety,"  in  accordance  with  the  happy  suggestion 
of  a  French  critic,  unless  one  give  both  the  words  a  large 
and  generous  rendering.  Let  us  take  a  few  illustrations  of 
the  spirit  indicated  by  the  word. 

First,  the  death  of  Lausus,  who  in  rescuing  his  father  was 
killed  by  Aeneas  in  battle — 

At  vero  ut  voltum  vidit  morientis  et  ora, 
ora  modis  Anchisiades  pallentia  miris, 
ingemuit  miserans  graviter  dextramque  tetendit 
et  inentem  patriae  subiit  pietatis  imago. 
"  quid  tibi  nunc,  miserande  puer,  pro  laudibus  istis, 
quid  pius  Aeneas  tanta  dabit  indole  dignum  ? 
arma  quibus  laetatus  habe  tua  ;  teque  parentum 
manibus  et  cineri,  si  qua  est  ea  cura,  remitto. 
hoc  tamen  infelix  miseram  solabere  mortem  : 
Aeneae  magni  dextra  cadis  (x.  821-30).^ 

This  is  how  Aeneas  makes  war.  Stern  necessity  compels 
him  to  strike  down  Lausus :  but  in  a  moment  the  dying 
face,  the  boyhood,  and  the  filial  love  of  his  victim  turn 
Aeneas  from  foe  to  friend.  Lausus  is  but  a  hoy— puer — 
but  he  has  done  what  Aeneas  did  himself  years  before,  he 

1  But  when  Anchises'  son  surveyed 
The  fair,  fair  face  so  ghastly  made, 
He  groaned,  by  tenderness  unmanned, 
And  stretched  the  sympathizing  hand, 
As  reproduced  he  sees  once  more 
The  love  that  to  his  sire  he  bore. 
"  Alas  !  what  honour,  hapless  youth, 
To  those  great  deeds,  that  soul  of  truth, 

Can  good  Aeneas  show  ? 
Keep  the  frail  arms  you  loved  to  wear  ; 
The  lifeless  corpse  I  yield  to  share 
(If  thought  like  this  still  claim  your  care) 

Your  fathers'  tomb  below. 
Yet  take  this  solace  to  the  grave  ; 
'Twas  great  Aeneas'  hand  that  gave 

The  inevitable  blow  "  (Conington). 


224  VIRGIL 

has  saved  his  father — the  patronymic  Anchisiades  is  not 
without  purpose — and  now  all  the  honour  that  a  hero  can 
pay  to  a  hero  Aeneas  will  render  to  Lausus.  Pietas  covers 
his  feeling  for  Lausus  as  well  as  his  feeling  for  Anchises. 

We  pass  naturally  to  the  scene  that  rose  in  the  mind  of 
Aeneas — the  fall  of  Troy  and  the  rescue  of  Anchises  and  the 
little  lulus.  Enough  has  been  said  of  Anchises,  but  mark 
the  picture  of  the  child — 

dextrae  se  parvus  lulus 
implicuit,  sequiturque  patrem  non  passibus  aequis^  (ii.  723). 

The  instinctive  act  of  the  child — slipping  his  hand  into  his 
father's — is  his  comment  on  Aeneas' /zV/rtJ-,  and  it  is  surely 
significant  that  at  such  an  hour  and  in  such  a  place  the 
little  footsteps  of  the  child  are  one  of  the  signal  memories 
of  the  night.2 

Now  another  picture  of  lulus.  During  the  siege  of  the 
camp  (Book  ix)  he  is  galled  by  the  taunts  which  Remulus 
Numanus  levels  at  the  Trojans,  and,  with  a  prayer  to 
Jupiter  for  success,  he  shoots  an  arrow  at  him  and  brings 
him  down.  The  boy  is  delighted  with  his  shot,  and  the 
Trojans  cheer  him.  His  father  is  not  there,  but  his  place 
is  for  the  moment  taken  by  Apollo,  and  though  the  action 
and  the  words  are  Apollo's,  they  are  in  the  spirit  of  Aeneas, 
and  may  illustrate  the  quality  which  v/e  are  considering — 
pietas.  The  god  applauds  the  boy  in  an  aside,  and  then  in 
clearer  tone  adds  a  word  for  gentleness — 

atque  his  ardentem  dictis  adfatur  lulum : 
"sit  satis,  Aenide,  telis  impune  Numanum 
oppetiisse  tuis ;  primam  hanc  tibi  magnus  Apollo 
concedit  laudem  et  paribus  non  invidet  armis  ; 
cetera  parce  puer  bello"^  (ix.  652). 

1  "  My  little  lulus  has  fastened  his  hand  in  mine  and  follows  his  father  with 
ill-matched  steps  "  (Conington). 

^  J.  R.  Green,  Stray  Sltidies,  p.  267,  brings  this  out  well. 
3  Enough,  Aeneas'  son,  to  know 

Your  hand,  unharmed,  with  shaft  and  bow 
Numanus'  life  has  ta'en  ; 


AENEAS  225 

"C'est  k  la  fois,"  says  Sainte-Beuve,  "management  et  re- 
spect pour  le  fils  de  leur  roi  et  pour  I'esperance  de  la  tige ;  et 
puis  Ascagne  est  trop  jeune  pour  la  guerre ;  si  jeune,  on  de- 
vient  trop  aisement  cruel.  J'entrevois  ce  dernier  sentiment 
sous-entendu.  "  ^ 

That  we  are  right  to  suppose  that  this  is  the  real  senti- 
ment of  Aeneas  as  well  as  of  Apollo  we  can  see  from  Aeneas' 
words  of  farewell  at  the  bier  of  Pallas — 

Nos  alias  hinc  ad  lacrimas  eadem  horrida  belli 
fata  vocant ;  salve  aeternum  mihi,  maxime  Palla, 
aeternumque  vale  ^  (xi.  96). 

It  is  the  revolt  oi pictas,  in  its  broadest  and  finest  quality^ 
against  a  destiny  which  drags  the  hero  against  his  will  into  war. 
Let  our  last  illustration  of  pictas  be  the  familiar  utter- 
ance of  Aeneas  when  he  saw  the  pictures  of  the  Trojan 
warriors,  including  himself,  on  the  walls  of  Dido's  temple — 

Sunt  lacrimae  rerum  et  mentem  mortalia 
tangunt)  A.  i  462). 

Professor  Tyrrell  holds  that  rerum  and  mortalia  mean 
"things  inanimate"  and  "the  works  of  men's  hands."  In 
this  case  Vir^^'il  would  mean  to  suggest  the  appeal  ot  art  to 
the  sympathetic  temper.  Wordsworth  and  Sainte-Beuve 
think  rather  of  the  appeal  of  man's  lot  to  man. 

Tears  to  human  sufiftrings  are  due  ; 
And  mortal  hopes  defeated  and  o'erthrown 
Are  mourned  by  man.^ 

Such  glory  to  your  first  of  fields 

Your  patrcn  god  ungrudging  yields, 

Nor  robs  of  praise  tlie  arms  he  wields  : 
From  further  flight  refrain. 
Conington   has   here  omitted    the  significant  puer,  which   Sainte-Beuve   seizes 
so  well. 

*  Sainte-Beuve,  Elude  sur  Vir^ile,  p.  178. 

*"Once  again  war's  dreadful  destiny  calls  us  hence  toother  tears:  hail  thou 
for  evermore,  O  princely  Pallas,  and  for  evermore  farewell."  'I'he  modern 
reader  will  think  here  of  the  farewell  of  Catullus  (ci.)  to  his  brother,  at  the  grave 
at  Rhoeteum,  and  Tennyson's  comment  on  in  perpetuurn,  and  he  may  wonder 
how,  if  it  were  in  Virgil's  mind  also,  it  squares  with  book  vi. 

*  Laodamia,     Attention  may  be  called  to  Henry's  note,  Aeneidea,  ad  loc. 

15 


226  VIRGIL 

The  former  rendering  is  not  at  all  impossible  or  un- 
Virgilian,  but  the  latter  gives  a  broader  and  deeper 
sense.  Aeneas  recognizes  that  at  Carthage  too,  human 
creatures  have  human  hearts,  and  he  takes  courage,  know- 
ing what  appeal  human  sorrow  makes  to  the  human  heart 
in  himself. 

If  to  Terence's  humani  nihil  a  me  alienum  puto  we  might 
add  nihil  divini,  the  enlarged  expression  (if  rather  cumbrous) 
would  very  fairly  represent  that  new  attitude  of  the  quick- 
ened man,  with  which  Virgil  endows  his  hero,  giving  it  the 
name  pietas,  by  which  he  links  a  modern  and  rather  Greek 
habit  of  mind  to  an  old  Roman  virtue,  enlarging  the  one, 
and  naturalizing  the  other. 


V 

We  have  not  yet  considered  Aeneas  as  prince.  Achilles 
and  Agamemnon  are  called  kings  by  Homer,  but  the  royalty 
of  Virgil's  Aeneas  dwarfs  them  at  once  into  Highland  chief- 
tains. Mycene  may  have  been  rich  in  gold,  and  yet  had, 
like  Ithaca,  a  midden  at  the  palace  doors ;  but  Virgil  was 
writing  under  a  monarch  who  could  boast  that  he  had  found 
Rome  brick  and  left  her  marble.^  It  was  a  boast  that 
implied  imperial  resources,  imperial  power,  and  an  imperial 
outlook,  and  all  these  come  between  the  Homeric  chiefs  and 
Aeneas,  and  make  him  a  prince  in  manner,  in  attitude,  and 
in  ideal. 

To  take  a  telling  example  of  the  princely  manner  of 
Aeneas,  we  may  turn  to  the  episode  of  his  killing  the  stags 
in  the  first  book,  which  is  of  course  modelled  in  Virgil's  way 
after  Odysseus'  story  of  his  stag-killing.  It  has  been  well 
handled  by  Sainte-Beuve,  whose  account  of  it  may  be  para- 
phrased. "  The  difference  between  the  two  pictures,"  he 
says,  "  one  feels  instinctively.  Aeneas  and  Odysseus  are 
voyaging  at  the  same  time,  but  there  is  a  distance  of  some 
centuries  between  their  manners  and  methods.  Odysseus, 
the  hero  of  the  simple  ages,  whose  only  aspiration  is  toward 
his  poor  Ithaca,  withdraws  alone  from  his  companions  and 

^  Suet.  Aug.  28  martnaream  se  relinquere  quam  latenciam  accepisset. 


AENEAS  227 

goes  to  spy  out  the  island  ;  he  sees  a  big  stag,  one  only,  and 
it  is  quite  enough  ;  he  kills  it  without  needing  to  ask  his 
arms  of  his  squire  (he  has  no  squire  or  confidant),  and,  as  it 
is  necessary  to  bring  back  the  beast  at  once  and  this  involves 
difficulty,  he  tells  us  in  detail  how  he  did  it,  how  he  made 
a  cord,  and  how  he  lifted  the  animal  on  to  his  neck,  and 
made  his  way,  leaning  on  his  spear ;  he  forgets  nothing. 
All  is  naive  and  frank,  quite  in  the  style  of  Robinson 
Crusoe,  a  style  which  Virgil  is  careful  not  to  applv  to  the 
founder  of  the  future  Roman  Empire.  How  could  these  two 
men,  Aeneas  and  Achates,  have  carried  their  seven  big 
beasts  to  the  ships?  It  is  a  question  not  even  asked  in  so 
dignified  a  tale.  Imagine  the  figure  of  Aeneas  drawn  with 
a  stag  upon  his  shoulders  and  his  head  appearing  among 
the  four  feet  of  the  animal !  Virgil  could  not  for  a  moment 
entertain  the  idea  of  such  a  picture.  Between  his  Aeneas 
and  Od}'sseus  had  come  cette  prodicction  sociale  fine,  delicate, 
dedaigneuse  ;  rurba?tite'  etait  nee."  ^ 

Yes,  urbanitas  had  been  born,  and  Aristotle  had  written 
of  the  Magnificent  Man.  It  was  the  mark  of  a  vulgar 
mind,  according  to  a  Greek  comic  poet,  to  walk  "  unrhythmic- 
ally "  in  the  street.  Court  etiquette  had  grown  up  round 
Alexander,  and  probably  still  more  round  his  less  great 
successors.  Some  part  of  this  would  inevitably  find  its 
way  to  Rome,  where  it  would  fit  in  well  with  the  national 
affectation  of  gravitas.  The  world  was  still  a  long  way 
from  Abraham  Lincoln.  Let  us,  however,  call  the  thing 
dignity  in  Aeneas,  and  recognize  it  as  a  mark  of  the  great 
prince. 

But,  if  Aeneas  has  the  outward  bearing  of  the  prince, 
he  has  the  higher  qualities  too,  for  he  is  Virgil's  picture 
of    an    ideal    ruler.      Morality    for    princes    was    probably 

'  Sante-Beuve,  iiude  sio-  Virgile,  p.  243.  The  passages  of  Homer  and 
Virgil  are  Odyssey  y..  144-71,  and  Aeneid  i.  180-93.  The  German  critic  Rohde 
has  also  called  the  C^'^j^y  *' die  alleste  Robinsonade."  Another  French  critic, 
however,  shared  the  Roman  feeling.  La  Motte,  according  to  M.  Patin  {Euripide, 
i.  p.  52),  "regrettait  qu'Homere  efit  degrade  son  Achille  en  lui  faisant  de  ses 
propres  mains  appreter  son  repas,  et  ne  lui  eut  pas  donne,  pour  soutenir  son  rang 
de  lieros,  un  maitre  d'h6tel,  ou,  tout  au  moins,  un  cuisinier."  See  also  on  Homer's 
method,  the  letter  of  Cowper  to  Samuel  Rose,  4  October  1789. 


2  28  VIRGIL 

already  becoming  a  branch  of  ethics ;  certainly  a  little  time 
after  Virgil's  day  it  is  well  developed.  Seneca's  tract  on 
Clemency,  written  for  Nero,  and  Dio  Chrysostom's  treatises 
addressed  to  Trajan  are  early  examples  of  this  sort  of  litera- 
ture;  while  by  the  fourth  century  A.D.  Julian,  Claudian,  and 
Synesius  had  a  plentiful  supply  of  honourable  and  ancient 
maxims  for  Emperors,  But  it  is  unlikely  that  Virgil 
troubled  the  minor  philosophers  for  their  commonplaces. 
With  a  poet's  feeling  he  read  the  story  of  Alexander,  and 
watched  the  work  of  Augustus,  and  rising,  in  his  way, 
from  the  particular  to  the  universal,  he  developed  in  his 
own  mind  the  idea  of  a  great  prince  and  drew  him  in 
Aeneas. 

Aeneas  has  the  statesman's  temper.  A  man  of  broad  out- 
look and  of  quick  intelligence,  he  thinks  for  a  nation,  and 
as  their  ruler  subordinates  himself  to  the  good  of  his  people. 
Apart  from  the  affair  of  Dido,  nowhere  does  he  fail  to  put 
his  people,  his  people  present  and  future,  before  himself. 
Not  that  he  submits  to  their  will  or  inclination,  for  he  is 
every  inch  a  King  and  not  a  President ;  he  gives  orders 
and  they  are  carried  out,  he  does  not  take  mandates  except 
from  the  gods.  Yet  he  is  not  unwilling  to  listen  to  advice — 
from  Anchises  or  Nautes,  from  the  old  and  the  trusted.  He 
will  humour  the  weak,  who  judge  themselves  unworthy  of 
his  quest,  and  like  an  Alexander  he  dots  the  world  with  his 
foundations.  The  Homeric  chief  had  destroyed  towns ; 
Aeneas  builds  them. 

He  makes  war  and  peace  as  a  prince  with  full  appre- 
hension of  what  they  mean  for  his  people.  If  as  a  man, 
worn  with  war  and  travel,  he  desires  peace,  he  also  desires 
it  as  a  prince  for  his  people  and  his  neighbours.  To 
the  Latins,  who  come  to  beg  the  bodies  of  the  slain,  he 
speaks  thus — 

Pacem  me  exanimis  et  Martis  sorte  peremptis. 
Gratis  ?  equidem  et  vivis  concedere  vellem  ^  (xi.  no). 

This  is  always  his  attitude,  but,  if  war  is  forced  upon  him, 

*  "  Is  it  peace  for  the  dead  you  ask  of  me,  for  them  on  whom  the  War-God's 
lot  has  fallen ?    Nay,  to   the  living  also  would  I  grant  it." 


AENEAS  229 

he  makes  war  like  a  prince.  He  carries  his  alh'es  into  action 
with  him,  and  no  cost  of  death  or  suffering  will  tempt  him  to 
falter.  War,  and  real  war,  his  enemies  shall  have,  if  they 
choose  it  ;  but  he  had  rather  they  chose  peace.^  Aeneas 
is  here  a  thorough  Roman,  and  he  hardly  needed  his  father's 
words  to  supplement  his  own  instinct — 

Tu  regere  imperio  populos,  Romane,  memento, 
hae  tibi  erunt  artes,  pacisque  imponere  morem 
parcere  subiectis  et  debellare  superbos  ^  (vi.  851). 

Latinus  and  Turnus  are  his  foils ;  the  one  unable  or 
unwilling  to  make  up  his  mind  and  act  on  it,  and  by  this 
weakness  bringing  defeat  and  death  on  his  people  ;  ^  the 
other  heedless  of  national  well-being  or  divine  decree,  if,  at 
any  cost  to  anybody  and  everybody,  he  can  gratify  his  own 
wishes.  If  the  reader  wearies  at  times  of  Aeneas  in  the 
pageantry  of  the  prince,  still,  as  prince  in  council  and 
prince  in  action  Aeneas  is  well  and  strongly  drawn.  The 
weariness,  which  the  reader  feels,  may  be  his  own  fault  as 
much  as  the  poet's,  for  it  takes  more  mental  effort  to  picture 
and  to  realize  to  oneself  the  hero  as  king  than  in  some  other 
characters. 

Aeneas  represents,  here  as  elsewhere,  a  later  age  than 
Homer,  No  doubt,  in  Homer  the  chief  leads,  and  the  people 
follow  the  chief  as  "  shepherd  of  his  people."  But  the 
Homeric  chief  is  nearer  Remulus  Numanus  ;  he  has  the 
weakness,  too  persistent  in  Greece,  for  petty  war  and  the 
pillaging  of  his  neighbours — 

semperque  recentes 
comportare  iuvat  praedas  et  vivere  rapto^  (ix.  612). 

Aeneas'  mind  is  other,  and  he  belongs  to  a  later  and  more 
developed    society.     Witness   his   admiration  of  the    rising 

^  One  might  compare  Caesar's  ejaculation  when  he  saw  the  dead  of  the 
enemy  upon  the  field  of  Pharsalia — hoc  voluerunt — quoted  from  Poliio  by 
Suet.  hil.  30.  Plutarch  Caesar,  46,  roOro  i^ovXriff-qa-ay,  els  tovto  fie  dvdyKTii 
iirriydyoiTO. 

*  Translation  on  p  143. 

'  The  querulous  weakness  of  Latinus  [A.  vii.  598)  nam  7nihi parta  quits,  etc. 

*  "  Ever  it  is  our  delight  to  gather  fresh  booty  and  to  live  by  plunder." 


230  VIRGIL 

Carthage,   its  walls,  its  senate-house,  its  port,  its  theatre — 
even  its  streets  and  their  noise — 

miratur  molem  Aeneas,  magalia  quondam,^ 

miratur  portas,  strepitumque  et  strata  viarum  (i.  421). 

But  it  is  as  a  prince  that  he  looks  at  the  great  city,  with 
the  spirit  of  an  Alexander  rather  than  of  a  Pericles. 
Democracy  and  its  factions  flourish  among  the  Italian 
tribes ;  Drances  and  Turnus  have  each  his  party ;  but  there 
are  no  parties  among  the  Trojans.  They  have  no  politics 
but  loyalty  to  their  prince.  This  means  a  certain  lack  of  in- 
terest. The  Trojans  generally,  as  we  have  seen, "  want 
physiognomy."  Like  the  Romans  under  the  later  Emperors, 
they  lack  initiative ;  they  are  apt  to  be  rather  helpless, 
almost  spiritless,  when  without  their  prince  ;  and  the  life 
of  the  nation  is  summed  up  in  the  prince.  Virgil's  political 
philosophy  is  not  Cicero's.  On  the  whole  perhaps  the  poets 
are  not  generally  very  whole-hearted  republicans.  "  For 
myself,"  Goethe  said  to  Eckermann,  "  I  have  always  been 
royalist."  ^  Aeneas  is  Virgil's  ideal  of  a  princely  character,  as 
he  is  his  ideal  of  manhood. 

fyx. 

In  conclusion,  when  we  have  weighed  the  character  of 
Aeneas,  and  allowed  for  the  incompleteness  of  presentation 
which  we  have  remarked,  we  may  sum  up  the  matter 
perhaps  most  truly  by  saying  that  Aeneas  is  Virgil's 
picture  of  the  "Happy  Warrior."^  The  traditions  of 
epic  poetry,  involving  the  Olympian  gods,  make  Aeneas 
less    reliant   upon    the    "  inward  light "   than    Wordsworth's 

^  "Aeneas  admires  the  mighty  structure,  once  mere  huts;  he  admires  the 
gates,  and  the  noise  and  the  paved  streets."  The  tnagalia  quondam  has  a  trans- 
Atlantic  tone.  The  thought  behind  it  lies,  as  a  rule,  outside  the  experience  of 
Englishmen,  who  misjudge  the  utterance  in  consequence. 

-  25  February  1824. 

^  It  should  be  remembered  that  the  delineation  of  the  perfect  man  was  much  in 
vogue.  The  Epicureans  had  their  ideal  sage  in  Epicurus.  Lucretius'  attack  on 
Hercules  points  to  a  similar  glorification  of  that  hero.  A  later  example  is 
ApoUonius  of  Tyana.  We  may  add  the  adoption  by  the  Stoics  of  the  reference 
to  the  personal  example — e.g.  Socrates  and  Zeno. 


AENEAS  231 

warrior,  even  if  Virgil  had    been   as  clear   as   Wordsworth 
on    the   possibility    or   sufficiency   of  such    a  guide  in   lite. 

Aeneas, 

if  he  be  called  upon  to  face 
Some  awful  moment,  to  which  Heaven  has  joined 
Great  issues,  good  or  bad,  for  human  kind, 

is  certainly  not  "happy  as  a  lover,"  nor  "attired  with 
sudden  brightness  like  a  Man  inspired."  A  genuine  Roman, 
he  is  not  supremely  concerned  with  the  labour  "good  on 
good  to  fix,"  nor,  perhaps,  to  "  make  his  moral  being  his 
prime  care."  Yet  much  of  Wordsworth's  poem  is  true  of 
Virgil's  Aeneas — 

Who,  doomed  to  go  in  company  with  Pain, 
And  Fear  and  Bloodshed,  miserable  train  ! 
Turns  his  necessity  to  glorious  gain  : 
In  face  of  these  doth  exercise  a  power 
Which  is  our  human  nature's  highest  dower  ; 
Controls  them  and  subdues,  transmutes,  bereaves 
Of  their  bad  influence,  and  their  good  receives  ; 
By  objects,  which  might  force  the  soul  to  abate 
Her  feeling,  rendered  more  compassionate  .  .  . 
Who  comprehends  his  trust,  and  to  the  same 
Keeps  faithful  with  a  singleness  of  aim  ;  .  .  • 
Is  yet  a  Soul  whose  master-bias  leans 
To  homefelt  pleasures  and  to  gentle  scenes  .  .  . 
More  brave  for  this,  that  he  hath  much  to  love. 

The  differences  between  the  two  characters  are  not  so 
much  contradictions  as  the  result  of  a  progression  in  the 
ideals  of  humanity.  If  Aeneas  has  sight  of  virtues  un- 
known to  Achilles,  the  "Happy  Warrior"  has  in  like 
manner  advanced  beyond  Aeneas.  The  greatness  of 
Achilles  is  not  lost  in  Aenas,  but  developed  by  the  ripening 
and  enlarging  of  human  experience.  Aeneas  is  morally 
on  a  higher  plane,  in  spite  of  the  occasional  vagueness  in 
Virgil's  drawing  of  him,  and  in  spite  of  some  uncertainty 
about  the  supreme  things,  which  passes  from  the  poet  into  his 
creation.  The  "  Happy  Warrior,"  in  turn,  has  lost  nothing 
of  Aeneas'   greatness,  but  he  has  regained   the  clear  look 


2  32  VIRGIL 

of  Achilles ;  he  is  not  distracted  by  unreconciled  views 
of  the  universe  ;  he  "  finds  comfort  in  himself  and  in  his 
cause,"  and  is  "  happy  as  a  lover,"  because  he  has,  what 
Aeneas  at  heart  lacked,  "  confidence  of  Heaven's  applause." 
Aeneas  falls  short  of  the  "  Happy  Warrior,"  but  he  is  of 
the  same  family.^ 

^  I  may  be  allowed  to  quote  Sainte-Beuve  once  more,  Etude,  p.  112  :  "Ce 
personnage  si  distinct,  si  accompli,  le  plus  Aeneas,  pieux  envers  les  hommes 
autant  qu'envers  les  dieux,  et  que  (sauf  son  moment  d'erreur  et  d'oubli  a  Car- 
thage), considerant  toutes  ses  vertus,  ses  devotions  et  religions,  ses  preuves 
d'humanite,  de  prud'homie,  de  courage,  je  suis  tenle  de  nommer  le  Godefroy 
de  Bouillon,  ou  mieux  (je  I'ai  dit  deja)  le  saint  Louis  d'antiquite  ; — le  plus 
parfait  ideal  de  heros  que  puisse  presenter  cette  religion  des  Numa,  des 
Xenophon,  dont  Plutarque  est  pour  nous  le  dernier  pretre." 


CHAPTER  X 
INTERPRETATION  OF  LIFE.— 3.  HADES 

Thou  soul  of  God's  best  earthly  mould  ! 

Thou  happy  soul !  and  can  it  be 

That  these  two  words  of  glittering  gold 

Are  all  that  must  remain  of  thee  ?— Wordsworth,  Matthew. 

Hoc  habet  argumenlum  divinitatis  suae  [xc.  animus]  quod  ilium  divina 
delectant  nee  ut  alienis  sed  ut  suis  interest.  Seneca  Naturales  Qtiatstiones  i., 
Prol.  §  12. 

•'  )4  LL  Virgil  is  full  of  learning,"  says  Servius,  in 
ZJk  opening  his  commentary  on  the  sixth  book  of 
X  ^the  Aeneid,  "but  for  learning  this  book  takes  the 
chief  place.  The  greater  part  of  it  is  from  Homer.  Some 
of  it  is  simple  narrative,  much  turns  on  history,  much 
implies  deep  knowledge  of  philosophers,  theologians,  and 
i  Egyptians,  to  so  great  an  extent  indeed  that  many  have 
written  complete  treatises  on  points  of  detail  in  this  book." 
So  much  said,  Servius  turns  at  once  to  the  text.  Our 
purpose,  however,  is  rather  to  obtain  a  general  view  of 
Virgil's  ideas  about  the  other  world,  and  to  see,  if  possible, 
the  various  parts  played  by  Homer  and  the  philosophers 
in  forming  those  ideas.^  Once  more  we  shall  find  traces 
of  the  progress  of  human  thought,  and  once  more  a  strong 
Roman  feeling   running  through   the  whole.     "  He  knew," 

^  In  a  poet  with  so  many  literary  affinities  as  Virgil,  a  larger  amount  of 
space  must  be  taken  up  with  the  study  of  his  literary  antecedents  than  in  the 
case  of  a  more  original  speculator.  Hence  in  this  and  the  following  chapter 
more  attention  is  given  to  ihe  hi-tory  of  speculation  upon  Hades  nnd  Olympus 
than  may  at  first  seem  necessary,  while  for  the  specialist  the  chapters  will  not 
be  interesting.  I  have  a  feeling  that  the  specialist  in  primitive  religion  knows 
a  great  deal  more  about  it  than  Virgil  did  and  that  this  special  knowledge  of  his 
therefore  lies  outside  our  present  sphere.  I  am  also  quite  clear  that  what  Virgil 
did  know  meant  incomparably  more  to  him — if  some  friendly  scholars  will  let 
me  say  so. 

288 


234  VIRGIL 

says  Servius,  "that  various  opinions  are  held  on  the  sway 
of  the  gods,  so  very  wisely  he  gave  it  a  general  treatment 
{teniiit  generalitateni).  In  the  main  he  follows  Siro,  his 
Epicurean  teacher.  The  men  of  this  school,  as  we  know, 
deal  with  the  surface  of  things,  and  never  penetrate  very 
deep."  1  Servius  here  speaks,  as  the  Neo-Platonists  of 
his  day  spoke,  of  Epicurus,  but  the  hint  he  gives  must 
not  be  disregarded.  Whatever  Virgil  learnt  from  Homer 
and  the  philosophers,  he  was  not  a  Neo-Platonist,  and  the 
early  influence  of  Siro,  and  still  more  of  Lucretius,  could 
never  be  wholly  eradicated  from  his  mind.  No  doubt  he 
was  never  so  thorough  an  Epicurean  as  Lucretius ;  his 
adherence  depended  more  on  training  than  on  conviction  ; 
but  still  his  Epicureanism  was  enough  to  keep  him  from 
ever  holding  such  a  point  of  view  as  that  of  Plutarch. 
Again,  we  must  remember  that  Virgil  is  pre-eminently 
a  poet  rather  than  a  philosopher  or  a  theologus^  and  we 
must  expect  him  to  treat  this  subject,  like  others,  with  the 
full  freedom  of  a  poet.  In  a  word,  while  we  look  for 
dependence  upon  others  who  have  treated  the  subject 
before  him,  we  must  also  look  for  detachment. 


I 

When  we  begin  to  examine  the  sources  of  Virgil's  Hades, 
we  are  apt  to  think  first  of  literature,  of  descriptions  of 
Hades  which  we  find  in  extant  books,  particularly  in  great 
books  ;  but  the  archaeologists  would  turn  our  attention 
elsewhere.  By  dint  of  careful  reading  of  books,  which  are 
not  literature,  some,  ancient  manuals  of  antiquities,  some, 
polemical  treatises ;  by  elaborate  study  of  ancient  ritual 
with  the  constant  aid  of  the  excavator,  they  have  brought 
to  light  another  and  very  different  side  of  ancient  life.  We 
have  been  accustomed  in  our  study  of  the  classics  to  hold  to 
a  traditional  account  of  mythology,  accepted  eventually  by 
Greeks  and  Romans  as  the  traditional  account  of  Old 
Testament   history   was   by   the  Jews,   and  amongst  other 

1  Servius,  ad  Aen.  vi.  264  siiperficiem  reruni  traclare^  nunquam  altiora 
disquirere. 


HADES  235 

matter  a  fairly  consistent  picture  of  Hades  has  reached  us. 
Literature  and  art  organized  the  mythology,  and  we  have 
habitually  accepted  this  organization. 

But  nowadays  the  comparative  study  of  religion  has 
given  us  new  principles  and  taught  us  to  look  for  much 
that  was  before  unnoticed,  and  the  archaeologists  have 
given  us  abundant  material  from  the  Greek  world  itself  to 
which  to  apply  our  new  methods.  We  find  then  in  only 
too  bewildering  profusion  ideas  of  things  divine,  demonic, 
or  devilish,  which  we  had  not  suspected  ;  now  and  then  we 
find  them  glimmering  perplexingly  behind  passages  and 
phrases  of  our  poets  long  familiar ;  often  it  is  the  excava- 
tion of  a  grave  or  the  discovery  of  an  inscription  which  tells 
us  how  little  we  really  knew  of  what  the  common  people 
were  thinking  while  the  great  minds  were 

Voyaging  through  strange  seas  of  Thought,  alone. 

One  or  two  important  points  should  be  noted.  First  of 
all,  one  feels  more  and  more  the  imperative  need  of  caution 
until  our  acquisitions  are  better  known.  We  do  not  yet 
know  from  whom  came  the  conceptions  of  the  other  world 
current  in  classical  Greece,  or  indeed  where,  and  still  less 
when,  they  began.  We  may  use  such  words  as  Pelasgic, 
chthonic,  Orphic,  and  so  forth,  but  it  is  difficult  to  use  them 
with  much  definition,  partly  because  our  knowledge  is  only 
partial  ;  partly  because,  as  M.  Boissier  says,i  where  there  is 
no  monotheism  there  are  no  false  gods,  and  it  was  even 
easier  for  one  set  of  ideas  to  be  merged  in  another,  especially 
where  neither  dealt  with  anything  definitely  known,  than 
for  Catholicism  to  absorb  and  adapt  the  ideas  and  practices 
of  its  pagan  environment.  In  the  next  place,  as  we  gain 
insight  into  the  confused  and  superstitious  thinking  of 
the  common  people,  we  realize  more  forcibly  the  grandeur 
and  the  value  of  what  we  call  the  Greek  genius.  The 
significance  of  that  transcendence  of  current  notions  and  of 
that  clear  strong  grip  of  reality,  which  are  its  constant 
marks,  becomes  intensified. 

^  La  Religion  romaine,  i.  p.  335  :  "  Pour  des  gens  qui  ne  croyaient  pas  i 
I'existence  dun  Dieu  unique,  il  u'y  avail  pas  de  faux  dieux." 


236  VIRGIL 

Let  us  turn  at  once  to  Homer's  world  of  the  dead.  Homer 
has  been  scanned  through  and  through  by  eager  eyes 
anxious  to  find  traces  of  what  is  called  primitive  religion, 
and  singularly  little  has  been  founds  Aeschylus  is  a  richer 
field  for  such  investigation.  For  the  great  mind,  which  it 
is  hardly  possible  not  to  feel  behind  the  Iliad  and  Odyssey 
as  we  have  them  (whatever  their  ultimate  origin  in  whole 
or  in  part),  divination,  magic,  the  cult  of  the  dead,  ritual 
generally,  are  outside  the  circle  of  supreme  interests ;  they 
are  dead,  unreal,  to  be  disregarded.  That  great  mind,  seems 
as  unconscious  of  such  things  as  Shakespeare  habitually  is 
of  the  religious  controversies  that  raged  around  him. 

To  take  the  first  example,  discussion  has  risen  about  the 
libations  which  Odysseus  pours  at  Circe's  bidding,  and  the 
blood  which  the  ghosts  drink.  Is  there  here  some  trace 
of  the  cult  of  the  dead  ?  If  there  is,  the  German  critic 
Kammer  would  cut  the  passage  out  as  an  insertion  ;  or,  if 
the  passage  is  not  so  easily  to  be  detached,  the  whole  Nekyia, 
the  visit  to  the  dead,  must  be  set  down  as  of  late  date  ;  so 
alien  to  Homer  is  the  suggestion  of  such  a  cult.  On  the 
other  hand,  Rohde  maintains  that,  while  the  cult  of  the 
dead  is  long  anterior  to  Homer's  age  and  lasted  long  after 
it,  it  was  not  practised  at  the  actual  time — it  was  re- 
membered, however,  and  the  poet  used  it.  But  at  all 
events,  whatever  the  origin  of  the  rights  performed  by 
Odysseus,  the  poet  has  his  own  explanation — the  "strength- 
less  heads  of  the  dead  "  drink  of  the  blood  to  gain  vision 
and  speech.  Anticleia,  the  hero's  mother,  is  not  suffered  to 
approach  the  blood  till  Teiresias  has  spoken,  and  then 
Odysseus  says,  "  I  see  here  the  spirit  of  my  mother  dead  ; 
lo,  she  sits  in  silence  near  the  blood,  nor  deigns  to  look 
her  son  in  the  face  nor  speak  to  him  !  Tell  me,  prince, 
how  may  she  know  me  again  that  I  am  he  ?  "  Teiresias 
says  that  she  must  drink  the  blood.  So  Anticleia  "  drank 
the  dark  blood,  and  at  once  she  knew  me."  ^  The  sacrifice 
is  lost  in  the  contrivance.     Thus,  in  general,  Homer's  is  the 

^  The  reader  may  consult  Professor  Gilbert  Murray's  Rise  of  the  Greek  Epic ; 
and  Mr  Andrew  Lang's  World  of  Homer  (1910)  pp.  126,  127,  133. 
*  Odyssey^  xi.  141  f.  (Butcher  and  Lang). 


HADES  237 

poetry    of  live    men,   and    he    "  lets    the   dead    bury   their 
dead."  ^ 

But  why  does  Odysseus  go  to  visit  the  dead  at  all  ? 
Especially,  it  is  asked,  why  should  he  go  to  learn  of 
Teiresias  what  Circe  can  and  does  tell  him  in  more  fullness  ? 
In  reply,  another  question  is  raised.  Did  he  go  at  all  in 
the  oldest  form  of  the  story  ?  Now,  when  we  begin  to  speak 
of  the  oldest  form  of  the  story,  it  is  time  to  pause.  What  is  the 
oldest  form  of  the  story  .'*  We  take  the  Odyssey  as  we  find 
it ;  and,  analysing  it,  we  recognize  stories  here  and  there 
which  we  meet  elsewhere.  Failing  another  name,  we  call 
them  *'  folk-tales  " — stories  told  from  of  old  everywhere  :  to 
whom  do  they  belong  or  what  is  their  oldest  form  ?  More 
than  three  hundred  variants  of  Cinderella  have  been  col- 
lected. When  we  have  recognized  our  folk-tales  in  the 
Odyssey,  we  can  make  our  conjectures  as  to  how  the  poem 
may  have  grown.  Whatever  the  original  germ,  it  now 
includesso  many  elements  of  immemorial  antiquity — who  shall 
say  how,  or  when,  or  where  it  came  by  them  ?  Some  of 
them  fit  into  their  places  only  loosely,  some  have  interpola- 
ations  within  themselves.^ 

Odysseus  really  visits  the  dead  in  virtue  of  the  old 
instinct,  which  in  other  lands  and  among  other  peoples  sent 
some  one  to  explore  the  undiscovered  country  and  return, 
and  the  very  looseness  of  connexion  between  book  xi  and 
the  rest  of  the  Odyssey  betrays  the  original  character  of  the 
tale.     In   the  Kalevala,  Walnamofnen,  "  like  all  epic  heroes, 

^  See  H.  Weil,  Etudes  sur  V antiquity  p-ecque,  p.  12,  on  Homer's  attitude  to 
the  abode  and  the  religion  of  the  dead  generally.  "Dans  ses  poemes  il  fait 
grand  jour."  See  also  the  fine  chapter  on  "The  House  of  Death"  in  Miss 
F.  Melian  Stawell's  Homer  and  the  Iliad — on  the  question  of  the  blood  and  the 
ghosts,  p.  157. 

*  Rohde  Psyche^,  pp.  49  ff. ,  on  the  descent  of  Odysseus,  holds  it  is  "one  of  the 
few  certain  results  of  critical  analysis  "  that  this  was  not  originally  a  part  of  the 
Odyssey.  Miss  Stawell,  Homer  and  the  Iliad,  p.  165,  has  another  view  :  "The 
loss  of  weight  to  the  Odyssey  if  this  Book  were  removed  can  hardly  be  over- 
estimated.'' I  am  less  and  less  in  a  hurry  to  discuss  the  Homeric  question  ;  I 
feel  that  so  far  more  learning  than  real  feeling  for  literature  has  been  in  most 
cases  brought  to  bear  on  it.  It  is  for  that  reason  that  with  a  warm  welcome 
for  the  books  of  Mr  Murray,  Miss  Stawell,  Mr  Lang  and  others,  I  do  not  want 
to  make  up  my  own  mind.  The  study  of  poety  grows  more  fascinating  and  more 
perplexing  as  one  reads  the  poets. 


238  VIRGIL 

visits  the  place  of  the  dead,"  ^  and  from  his  story  we  can 
glean  a  hint  or  two  for  future  use.  "  The  maidens  who  play 
the  part  of  Charon  are  with  difficulty  induced  to  ferry  over 
a  man  bearing  no  mark  of  death  by  fire  or  sword  or  water  " 
— this  was  what  Aeneas  found.  Again,  on  his  return, 
Wafnamoinen  warns  mankind  to  "  beware  of  perverting 
innocence,  of  leading  astray  the  pure  heart;  they  that  do 
these  things  shall  be  punished  eternally  in  the  depths  of 
Tuoni.  There  is  a  place  prepared  for  evil-doers,  a  bed  of 
stones  burning,  rocks  of  fire,  worms  and  serpents."  The 
"  somewhat  lax  and  wholesale  conversion  "  of  the  Finns  to 
Christianity  left  them  much  where  they  were,  but  we  can 
feel  here,  with  Mr  Lang,  that  this  revelation  is  coloured  by 
ideas  which  were  not  those  of  the  primitive  Finns.  In  the 
same  way  we  are  not  surprised  to  be  told  that  scholars 
question  the  age  of  that  passage  in  the  Nekyia  where 
Odysseus  sees  Minos  judging  and  Tityos,  Tantalus,  and 
Sisyphus  in  torment  (568-600).^  Whoever  added  them  to 
the  story  was  so  absent-minded  as  not  to  notice  that  they 
could  not  well  come  to  Odysseus  like  the  other  shades. 
They  are  there,  it  is  clear,  to  point  a  moral.  Similarly 
to  safeguard  tradition,  a  late  hand  added  the  explanation, 
not  a  very  lucid  one,  of  how  it  is  that  Herakles  can  be 
at  once  a  god  in  Olympus  and  be  seen  by  Odysseus,  a  shade 
in  hell. 

Odysseus  visits  the  other  world,  and  while  it  is  better  for 
us  not  to  question  too  closely  as  to  the  reason  for  his  going, 
we  may  ask  what  he  finds  there.  We  have  put  on  one  side 
the  moral  tales  of  Sisyphus  and  the  others,  and  it  is 
generally  agreed  that  we  must  also  set  aside  the  charming 
but  rather  irrelevant  heroines,  who  seem  to  have  been 
sent  to  see  him  to  please  another  and  a  less  poetic  age.^ 

^  Andrew  Lang,  Ctisto?n  and  Myth,  p.  171. 

*  Weil,  Etudes,  p.  22,  points  out  that  ancient  and  modem  criticism  agrees  here. 
Miss  Stawell,  op.  cit.  p.  154,  would  omit  Minos,  Sisyphus,  and  Herakles. 

^  Miss  Stawell,  op.  cit.  159,  defends  the  heroines,  against  the  view  of  Wilamowitz 
that  the  choice  of  figures  is  accidental..  In  view  of  recent  research  in  the  folk- 
lore of  the  Dioscuri,  it  is  perhaps  worth  while  to  note  in  passing  that  every 
heroine  who  is  mentioned  in  the  passage  as  having  a  god  for  her  lover  bore  twins. 
The  mother  of  Herakles  is  not  an  exception.  But  this  is  a  little  remote  from 
Virgil. 


HADES  239 

Odysseus,  then,  sets  his  sails,  and  "a  breeze  of  the 
North  wind  "  (x.  507),  sent  by  Circe  (xi.  6),  bore  the  ship 
"  to  the  limits  of  the  world,  to  the  deep-flowing  Oceanus. 
There  is  the  land  and  the  city  of  the  Cimmerians,  shrouded 
in  mist  and  cloud,  and  never  does  the  shining  sun  look 
down  on  them  with  his  rays,  neither  when  he  climbs  up 
the  starry  heavens,  nor  when  again  he  turns  earthward 
from  the  firmament,  but  baleful  night  is  outspread  over 
miserable  mortals.  Thither  we  came  and  beached  the  ship." 
He  disembarks  and  goes  on  foot  to  "  the  place  which  Circe 
had  declared."  Circe's  geography  is  still  a  little  vague.  She 
had  told  him  to  beach  his  ship  by  deep-eddying  Oceanus, 
"  but  go  thyself  to  the  dank  house  of  Hades."  "  Thereby, 
she  continues,  "  into  Acheron  flow  Pyriphlegethon  and 
Cocytus,  a  branch  of  the  water  of  the  Styx,  and  there  is 
a  rock  and  the  meeting  of  the  two  roaring  waters."  One  may 
wonder  whether  Circe  actually  named  these  streams,  which 
Odysseus  does  not  again  mention,  or  whether  they  came  into 
the  story  with  Sisyphus  and  the  heroines. 

However,  on  reaching  the  place,  wherever  it  was,  Odysseus 
drew  his  sword,  dug  his  pit,  a  cubit  in  length  and  breadth, 
and  "  poured  a  pouring  "  to  all  the  dead,  of  mead  and  wine 
and  water.  Then  he  sprinkled  white  meal,  prayed  and 
promised  other  offerings — a  black  heifer  for  them  all,  and  a 
black  ram  for  Teiresias — to  be  given  on  his  return.  So  much 
said,  he  bled  the  sheep  over  the  trench,  "and  lo !  the  spirits 
of  the  dead  that  be  departed  gathered  them  from  out  of 
Erebus.  Brides  and  youths  unwed,  and  old  men  of  many 
and  evil  days,  and  tender  maidens  with  grief  yet  fresh  at 
heart;  and  many  there  were,  wounded  with  bronze-.shod 
spears,  men  slain  in  fight  with  their  bloody  mail  about 
them.  And  these  many  ghosts  flocked  together  from  every 
side  about  the  trench  with  a  wondrous  cry,  and  pale  fear 
got  hold  on  me."  ^  The  sheep  are  burnt  and  prayer  made 
to  mighty  Hades  and  to  dread  Persephone. 

When  at  last  the  dead  begin  to  speak  with  Odysseus,  we 
get  from  them  the  clearest  picture  of  their  state.  "  Where- 
fore," asks  Teiresias,  "hast  thou,  poor  man,  left  the  sunlight 

>  Od.  xi.  36-43. 


240  VIRGIL 

and  come  hither  to  behold  the  dead  and  a  joyless  land  ? "  ^ 
Odysseus  tries  to  embrace  his  mother,  but  thrice  she  flits 
from  his  hands  "  like  a  shadow  or  a  dream,"  and  he  asks  if 
she  is  but  a  phantom,  "  Ah  !  me  !  my  child,  Persephone, 
daughter  of  Zeus,  doth  in  no  wise  deceive  thee,  but  even 
thus  is  it  with  mortals  when  a  man  dies.  For  the  sinews  no 
more  bind  together  the  flesh  and  the  bones,  but  the  great 
force  of  burning  fire  abolishes  these,  so  soon  as  the  life  has 
left  the  white  bones,  and  the  spirit  like  a  dream  flies  away 
and  is  gone.  But  to  the  light  haste  with  all  thy  heart" 
(216-23). 

The  shade  of  Agamemnon  wept  and  shed  tears,  but  could 
not  embrace  Odysseus.  "  It  might  not  be,  for  he  had  now 
no  steadfast  strength  nor  power  at  all,  such  as  was  afore- 
time in  his  supple  limbs"  (393).  "How,"  asks  Achilles, 
"durst  thou  come  down  to  the  house  of  Hades,  where  dwell 
the  senseless  dead,  the  phantoms  of  men  outworn  ?"  (475). 
"  Nay,  speak  not  comfortably  to  me  of  death,"  he  cries. 
"  Rather  would  I  live  on  ground,  as  the  hireling  of  another, 
with  a  landless  man,  who  had  no  great  livelihood,  than  bear 
sway  among  all  the  dead  that  be  departed  "(488-91). 

"  Persephone  doth  in  no  wise  deceive  thee ! "  The  dead 
are  as  shadows  or  dreams,  dwelling  in  a  joyless  land  with- 
out light  or  sun.  Their  lot  is  duller  than  the  dullest  and 
weariest  the  living  can  know — "a  nerveless,  noiseless  ex- 
istence." So  judged  the  poet  of  the  Odyssey?'  Later  hands 
confused  his  tale  with  moral  instances,  and  the  long  develop- 
ment of  hell  began.^  But  even  so,  apart  from  the  three 
great  sinners  of  legend,  it  is  startling  to  realize  how  empty 

^  Note  the  force  of  omitting  line  92,  which  is  absent  from  the  MSS.  Teiresias 
does  not  recognize  the  visitor,  until  he  has  drunk  the  blood.  "  Anticleia,"  says 
Mr  Nairn,  "seems  to  have  had  a  vague  knowledge  of  her  son  before  she  had 
drunk  the  blood  :  hence  she  lingers  .  .  .  full  consciousness  she  only  attains  with 
the  draught." 

*  The  second  Nekyia  does  not  belong  to  the  picture.  The  ghosts  are,  perhaps 
a  little  livelier— they  have  at  least  something  to  talk  about;  they  are  not  the 
ghosts  of  the  first  Nekyia,  they  are  an  imitation  and  not  a  good  one.  The  local 
colour  of  the  "  White  Rock  "  and  Hermes  and  his  rod  are  all  of  a  later  age.  See 
Ettig,  Acherimtica,  p.  276. 

2  Dieterich,  Nekyia  (Teubner,  1893),  P-  77>  holds  that  these  insertions  were 
made  by  men  who  were  far  above  the  ideas  criticized  by  Plato  (see  p.  249),  but 
who  yet  were  Orphics. 


HADES  241 

after  all  is  the  eventual  hell  of  the  Odyssey.     Whatever  may 
be  the  function  of  the  Homeric  Erinnyes,^  it  is  not  exercised 
in  this  Hades.     There  is  no  Tartarus,  no   Elysium,  so  no 
Minos  is  needed  to  send  the  dead  to  the  one  or  the  other.^ 
Proteus,  it  is  true,  prophesies  to  Menelaus  that  he  will  not 
die  in  Argos,  "  but  the  deathless  gods  will  convey  thee  to 
the  Elysian  plain  and  the  world's  end,  where  is  Rhadamanthys 
of  the  fair  hair,  where  life  is  easiest  for  men.     No  snow  is 
there,  nor  yet  great  storm,  nor  any  rain  ;  but  always  Oceanus 
sendeth  forth  the  breeze  of  the  shrill  West  to  blow  cool  on 
men  ;  yea,  for  thou  hast  Helen  to  wife,  and  thereby  they 
deem  thee  {cr<piv)   to   be  son-in-law  of  Zeus"   (iv.    561-70). 
Of  all  this  Odysseus  sees  nothing  whatever,  and,  even  on 
Proteus'  showing,  it  seems  to  be  reserved  for  the  sons-in-law 
of  Zeus.     The  history  of  the  Greek  ideas  of  the  other  world 
is  the  story  of  the  conquest  of  Elysium  for  common  people, 
the  introduction  of  merit  and  eventually  of  morals  into  life 
beyond  the  grave  and  the  consequent  necessity  for  Tartarus. 
Perhaps  the  first  order  introduced  into  the  world  of  the 
dead  is  due  to  "the  clear  but  clumsy  intellect  '  ^  of  Hesiod, 
but  even  he  does  not  take  us  very  far.     The  dead  of  the 
golden  age  are  "  good  demons,  above  ground,  guardians  of 
mortal    men " ;    those   of  the    silver   age   are  underground, 
but  blessed,  conspicuously  coming  second,  yet  in  honour; 
those  of  the  bronze  age  are  in   "the  dank  house  of  chill 
Hades,  nameless  "  ;  the  heroes,  the  fourth  race,  are  no  longer 
where   Homer  left  them,  but,  "  with  hearts  free  from  care, 
are  in  the  islands  of  the  blessed,  by  the  eddies  of  Oceanus  " 
( Works  and  Days,    109-73).     As   for  the  men  of  his  own 
day,  Hesiod  shows  us  that  things  are  bad  enough  on  earth, 
but  their  eventual  lot  he  omits  to  mention.     The  Titans  are 
in  murky  darkness,  with  no  escape,  girt  by  a  wall  and  gates 
of  brass  {Theog.  720-45). 

^  See  Iliad,  xix.  259 'Ep'i'i^f  s,  at  ^'  t'l'i  '^aia.v  dvOpiLirov^  Tivvvrai.,  oris  k'  iirlopKov 
d/xoffffri.     In  //.  iii.  278  the  Erinnyes  yield  place  to  a  vaguer  oi. 

*  Minos  defjitffT(vei  for  the  dead  {!.■  268),  who  ask  him  for  pronouncements 
(5t«as).  In  other  words,  just  as  Orion  hunted  in  life  and  goes  on  hunting  below, 
so  Minos  goes  on  judging.  Even  so,  lioth  Orion  and  Minos  are  insertions. 
Plato's  view  of  Minos  is  not  Homer's,  even  though  he  quotes  the  passage,  Gorgias, 
526  D.  ^  Gomperz,  Greek  Thinkers^  i.  p.  38. 

16 


242  VIRGIL 


II 

The  chief  sources  ol  teaching  on  the  other  world  were 
the  various  mysteries,  especially  those  of  Eleusis.  It  is 
difficult  to  distinguish  the  confluent  streams  of  thought, 
but  three  stages  in  the  history  of  Eleusis  and  its  rites  are 
recognized — the  first,  that  represented  in  the  Homeric 
hymn  to  Demeter ;  the  second,  marked  by  the  gradual 
introduction  of  orgiastic  and  Dionysiac  rites  and  associated 
with  the  mystic  name  of  lacchus  ;  and  the  third,  connected 
more  closely  with  the  name  Dionysus  Zagreus,  with  Orphic 
religion  and  Oriental  rite,  and  dating  from  about  the  time 
of  Alexander  the  Great.i 

The  Homeric  hymn  speaks  of  Demeter  teaching  Tripto- 
lemus  and  other  kings,  whose  names  grew  more  mystic  in 
later  days,  "  the  doing  of  sacred  things,  and  awful  rites 
{opyia  aejULva),  that  none  may  transgress  nor  ask  of,  nor  tell 
— great  awe  of  the  gods  checks  speech.  Happy  is  he  among 
men  on  earth  who  has  seen  them  ;  and  he  that  is  not  initiate, 
and  he  that  has  part  therein,  have  never  the  same  lot,  when 
dead,  and  in  dank  darkness  below"  (474-82).  Does  happi- 
ness imply  immortality  } 

Many  strange  ideas  have  been  current  about  what  was 
done  in  the  mysteries  and  what  there  was  to  conceal.  Ex- 
cavation of  the  site  of  the  Hall  of  Mysteries  has  revealed 
that  it  was  not  a  temple,  had  no  statue  of  a  deity,  knew  no 
sacrifices  within  doors.  The  arrangements  for  exit,  seating, 
and  so  forth  are  so  free  from  any  suggestion  of  mystery  as 
to  cause  "  a  shade  of  disillusion  "  ^ — in  fact,  as  Pompey  found 
at  Jerusalem,   we  find   at   Eleusis    nu//a   intus  deuni  effigie 

^  Percy  Gardner,  Neiv  Chapters  in  Greek  History,  ch.  xvii.  p.  385  f.  ; 
Lenormant,  Contemporary  Review,  May,  i88o  (vol.  i.  p.  859).  Here  again,  as  in 
the  previous  section  on  Homer,  I  may  be  allowed  to  apply  to  myself  the  re- 
mark of  Servius  quoted  at  the  beginning  of  the  chapter — "  he  knew  there  were 
various  opinions,  but  tennit  generalitatem  " — or,  like  Poins,  tried  to  keep  to  the 
middle  of  the  road.  The  real  aim  of  the  chapter  is  lightly  to  sketch  such  views 
as  Virgil  probably  knew  about — not  to  discuss  archaeological  problems,  non 
nosti-um  inter  vos  tantas  componere  lites. 

*  P.  Gardner,  op.  cit.,  p.  391  ;  Lenormant,  C.  R.,  Sept.,  1880,  p.  419. 


HADES  243 

vacuam  sedent  et  inania  arcana}-  It  would  seem  that  miracle 
plays,  as  we  should  call  them,  and  these  of  no  very  intricate 
or  elaborate  machinery,  were  performed — plays  turning  on 
the  stories  of  Demeter,  and,  later  on,  of  Zagreus.  That 
representations  of  the  tortures  of  Tartarus  or  the  delights 
of  Elysium  were  given  is  apparently  very  doubtful.  Con- 
fronted with  Aristophanes'  Frogs,  Lenormant  holds  that 
"the  boldness  of  the  poet  appears  to  demonstrate  just  the 
opposite  of  that  which  it  is  sought  to  infer  from  it.  If  the 
sight  of  the  infernal  regions  had  been  placed  before  the  eyes 
of  the  initiated  in  the  mysteries,  an  illusion  so  direct  would 
have  been  considered  as  a  violation  of  the  secret." 

Nor  does  it  seem  that  the  priests  taught  any  theological 
or  mystical  doctrine,  or  had  indeed  any  ideas,  very  different 
from  those  current  without  the  precincts.  Synesius  of 
Cyrene  (not  yet  a  bishop),  in  criticizing  the  ecstatic  virtues 
of  the  Christian  monks  and  priests,  complains  that  there 
is  no  reason  or  reflection  about  them  ;  the  monks  remind 
him  of  what  Aristotle  said  of  men  being  initiated  in  the 
mysteries — "  they  learnt  nothing,  but  had  feelings,  were 
put  into  a  frame  of  mind — supposing,  of  course,  they  were 
in  a  fit  state  beforehand,"  and  this  fit  state  (is  this  Aristotle 
or  Synesius  speaking?)  was  aXoyo?,  had  nothing  to  do  with 
reason.-  No  wonder  that  Pindar,  hinting  at  the  mysteries, 
says  ^covdeura  a-vveroicnv.^  Professor  Gardner  suggests  a 
comparison  with  Christian  sacraments,  which  may  be  only 
too  apposite.* 

More  important  than  the  original  contribution  of  Eleusis 
to  the  doctrine  of  another  life  are  those  of  two  schools  of 
thought,  differing  in  their  initial  aims  and  ideas  but  uniting 
at  last  in  one  great  tradition — the  Pythagoreans  and  the 
Orphics.  Into  their  origin  we  cannot  here  inquire.  It  will 
be  enough  to  say  that  direct  or  indirect  indebtedness  to  the 

1  Tacitus,  //isf.  v  9.  "  No  image  within  of  a  god,  the  shrine  vacant,  the 
mysteries  empty." 

"Synesius,  Dio,  p.  48,  Migne  col.  1 1 33.  Ar.  Fra^:,  ed.  Heitz,  p.  40;  Oi) 
IxaOeiv  ri  del  {yp.  ri  5e1v)  is  Migne's  text. 

'  01.  ii.  93,  "  with  a  voice  for  such  as  understand." 

*  Op.  cit.,  p.  402.  Cf.  Dr  Hatch's  Hibbert  Lectures,  x.  pp.  295  ff.,  on  the 
historical  connexion  between  Greek  and  Christian  "mysteries." 


244  VIRGIL 

far  East  has  been  asserted  of  Pythagoras,  and  that  side  by 
side  with  the  Thracian  connexion  of  Orphism  there  has  been 
recognized  considerable  affinity  with  Egyptian  thought^ 
To  be  brief,  Pythagoras  was  led  to  emphasize  the  doctrine  of 
the  transmigration  of  souls.^  The  Orphic  teaching  found  its 
centre  in  the  myth  of  Dionysus  Zagreus,  the  child-god 
mutilated  and  devoured  by  the  Titans,  whose  heart,  however, 
was  rescued  by  Athene  and  swallowed  by  Zeus  to  reappear 
as  the  new  Dionysus.^  The  Titans  were  struck  by  the 
thunderbolt,  and  from  their  ashes  rose  mankind,  creatures 
of  a  two-fold  nature,  Titanic  and  divine,  ever  to  be  torn 
this  way  and  that  by  these  conflicting  elements  of  evil  and 
good  linked  in  uneasy  union.  Traces  are  here  of  very 
different  lines  of  thought — in  the  rending  of  the  child-god 
asunder  we  are  near  the  strange  rites  that  cluster  round  the 
sacramental  animal,  the  camel  of  the  Arabs,  the  calf  of  the 
Maenads,  rites  surviving  in  a  purified  form  in  the  Hebrew 
Passover.*  In  the  war  of  Titans  and  gods,  and  the  resulting 
double  nature  of  man,  we  are  not  far  from  doctrines  most 
familiar   to   the   western    world    in    Manichaeanism.^     With 

^  See  Gomperz,  Greek  Thinkers,  bk.  i.  ch.  5  ;  Dieterich,  Nekyia,  pp.  72-107. 
Jevons,  Intr.  to  Hist,  of  Religion,  pp.  352  f.,  376.  Miss  Jane  Harrison, 
Prolegomena  to  the  Study  of  Greek  Religion,  passim. 

*  "Leave  off  beating  the  dog  ;  for  I  recognize  in  his  tones  the  voice  of  the 
soul  of  a  friend."  So  Xenophanes  reports  him  to  have  said  ;  aj).  Diogenes 
Laertius,  viii.  36  : 

Kol  irore  /xiv  aTv4>e\i^ofJievov  <TKv\aKos  irapiovra. 

(fxialv  ewoLKTeipai.  /cat  rode  (pdcrdai.  iwos, 
iravaaL  fi,rjSi  pairil''  eireirj  (piKov  a.vipo%  earl 

Hohn  {Gk.  Hist.  i.  369)  takes  the  story  to  be  parody.  Gomperz,  even  so,  finds 
it  true  to  character.  See  also  Rhys  David's  Hibbert  Lectures,  iii.  "The 
Buddhist  Doctrine  of  Karma."  He  distinguishes  between  the  Platonic  and 
Buddhist  theories,  and  doubts  if  transmigration  was  ever  held  by  an  Aryan  race 
uninfluenced  from  outside. 

^  Clement  of  Alexandria,  Protrepticus,  1 5  P.  citing  ' '  Orpheus  the  poet. " 

*  See  Robertson  Smith,  Religion  of  the  Semites,  lecture  ix.  p.  338.  In 
January  1897  there  was  some  little  trouble  with  the  Indians  of  British  Columbia, 
owing  to  the  government's  objection  to  a  rite,  in  which  a  live  dog  was  torn  up  by 
the  participants  with  their  teeth  and  eaten  raw. 

^  See  Gustav  Fliigel,  Mani,  seine  Lehrc  u.  seine  Schriften  aus  dem.  Fihrist, 
Leipzig,  1862  (pp.  89-105,  a  translation  of  the  fragments  of  Mani's  original 
teaching). 


HADES  245 

both  Orphics  and  Manichaeans  the  problem  was  the 
universal  one,  to  explain  the  strange  contradiction  in 
human  nature,  and  then  to  disentangle  the  divine  element. 

The  common  doctrine  of  Pythagorean  and  Orphic  "  may- 
be epitomized  in  a  single  significant  phrase  as  the  'fall  of 
the  soul  by  sin.'  The  soul  was  of  divine  origin,  and  its 
earthly  existence  was  unworthy  of  it.  Its  body  was  a 
fetter,  a  prison,  a  grave.  ...  Its  sin  involved  it  in  peniten- 
tial punishment,  for  through  atonement  and  purification 
alone  would  it  be  able  to  return  to  the  divine  home  whence 
it  came.  This  process  of  purification  and  atonement  was 
accomplished  in  two  ways — by  the  penalties  of  Hades  and 
by  the  cycle  of  births.  We  may  conjecture  that  the 
penalties  of  Hades  were  a  later  accretion  to  the  Pythagorean 
doctrine  of  metempsychosis,  derived  from  the  Orphics  and 
fused  with  it  through  their  influence."  1  After  a  long  series 
of  re-incarnations,  interrupted  by  epochs  of  punishment 
in  the  pool  of  mire  (a  great  feature  in  Orphic  schemes  of 
the  other  world),  the  soul,  pure  once  more,  escaped  to 
re-enter  its  home  and  be  with  the  gods.  The  wheel  which 
we  know  in  Buddhism, ^  or  one  very  like  it,  reappears  in 
Orphism.  An  actual  wheel  was  used  in  Orphic  ceremonies  ; 
a  pictured  wheel  appears  in  their  presentments  of  the  other 
world.^  It  will  be  seen  that  here  we  have  the  origin  of 
much  in  Virgil's  Hades.  The  wheel  itself  reappears  in  his 
story, 

ubi  mille  rotam  volvere  per  annos^  (A.  vi.  748). 

"  The  best  witness  to  the  faith  of  the  Orphic  as  to  the 
future  life,"  says  Miss  Harrison,  "  are  his  own  confessions, 
buried  with  him  in  his  tomb,  inscribed,  happily  for  us,  on 
imperishable  gold."  Eight  tablets  of  very  thin  gold  have 
been  found  in  graves,  most  of  them  in  southern  Italy,  and 
they  date  apparently  from  the  third  and  fourth  centuries  B.C. 

1  Gomperz,  GreeJi:  Thinkers,  p.  128.     See  also  Dieterich,  Nekyia,  ch.  iii. 

*  See  W.  Simpson,  llie  Buddhist  Praying  Wheel,  Notes,  p.  272,  for  a  picture 
of  a  Tibetan  Buddhist  Wheel  of  Life,  taken  {torn  Journal  of  Royal  Asiatic  Society. 

'  See  Miss  Harrison,  Prolegomefia,  pp.  589-94,  and  figures  163,  164.  Simpson, 
Buddhist  Fraying  Wheel,  figures  on  pp.  41,  266,  267. 

4  »'  When  they  have  rolled  the  wheel  for  a  thousand  years," 


246  VIRGIL 

Two  will  suffice   us  for  the  present.     First,  the  Campagno 
tablet,  found  near  Naples,  close  to  the  hand  of  a  skeleton — 

Out  of  the  pure  I  come.  Pure  Queen  of  Them  Below, 
Eukles  and  Eubuleus  and  the  other  Gods  immortal. 
For  I  also  avow  me  that  I  am  of  your  blessed  race, 
But  Fate  laid  me  low  and  the  other  Gods  immortal 

starflung  thunderbolt. 

I  have  flown  out  of  the  sorrowful  weary  Wheel. 

I  have  passed  with  eager  feet  to  the  Circle  desired. 

I  have  sunk  beneath  the  bosom  of  Despoina,  Queen  of 

the  Underworld. 
I  have  passed  with  eager  feet  from  the  Circle  desired. 
Happy  and  Blessed  One,  thou  shalt  be  God  instead  of 

mortal. 

A  kid  I  have  fallen  into  milk.^ 

The  second  tablet  is  from  Petelia,  and  it  runs — 

Thou  shalt  find  on  the  left  of  the  House  of  Hades  a 
Well-spring, 

And  by  the  side  thereof  standing  a  white  cypress. 

To  this  Well-spring  approach  not  near. 

But  thou  shalt  find  another  by  the  Lake  of  Memory, 

Cold  water  flowing  forth,  and  there  are  guardians  before  it. 

Say  :  "  I  am  a  child  of  Earth  and  of  Starry  Heaven  ; 

But  my  race  is  of  Heaven  (alone).  This  ye  know  your- 
selves. 

And  lo  !  I  am  parched  with  thirst  and  I  perish.  Give 
me  quickly 

The  cold  water  flowing  forth  from  the  Lake  of  Memory." 

And  of  themselves  they  will  give  thee  to  drink  from  the 
holy  Well-spring, 

And  thereafter  among  the  other  heroes  thou  shalt  have 
lordship  .  .  . 

Three  lines  follow,  of  which  only  scattered  words  remain.^ 

^  Miss  Harrison,  Prolegomena  to  Greek  Religion,  ch.  xi.  p.  586.  There  is  no 
lacuna  or  illegibility  on  the  tablet  itself  answering  to  the  dots ;  but  metre 
and  sense  show  there  is  an  omission.  The  tablet  is  in  the  National  Museum 
at  Naples.     H.  Weil,  Etudes,  pp.  37  ff. 

*  Miss  Harrison,  op.  cit.,  p.  374.     This  is  in  the  British  Museum. 


HADES  247 

Before  we  pass  on,  it  bears  upon  our  present  purpose 
to  notice  that  both  Orpheus  and  Pythagoras  were  said  to 
have  descended  into  hell.  Orpheus'  descent  is  of  course 
famous — how  much  of  its  fame  comes  from  the  fourth 
Georgict — but  it  seems  highly  probable  that  the  romantic 
motive,  on  which  it  turns  in  the  common  story,  is  not  the 
original  one.  Either  he  did  not  descend  to  regain  the  lost 
Eurydice  but  to  learn  about  things  below  with  a  view  to 
teaching  them  above  ground ;  or,  if  he  did  go  to  recover 
Eurydice,  it  seems  highly  probable  that  the  story  is  a 
variant  of  the  descent  of  Dionysus  to  recover  Semele.* 
Pythagoras,  according  to  one  story,  saw  the  soul  of  Hesiod 
bound  with  brass  to  a  pillar,  and  squeaking  {rplt^ovrrav),  while 
Homer's  was  hanging  to  a  tree  with  serpents  round  it — 
punishments  for  their  stories  of  the  gods.  An  interesting 
fragment  of  the  Pythagorean  of  the  comic  poet  Aristophon 
brings  us  back  into  touch  with  the  actual  world  :  "  He  said 
that  he  went  down  to  the  regime  below  and  saw  the 
various  groups ;  and  that  the  Pythagoreans  were  by  far  the 
best  off  among  the  dead  ;  for  they  were  the  only  people  with 

whom  Pluto  dined — on  account  of  their  piety. Well,  he's 

an  easy-going  god,  if  he  enjoys  the  company  of  such 
unwashed  fellows."  ^ 

Whatever  the  date  of  Aristophon,  who  is  supposed  to 
be  a  poet  of  the  New  Comedy,  Orphic  and  Pythagorean 
teaching  about  the  other  world  seems  to  have  been  widely 
known,  and  traces  of  it  are  found  freely  in  the  great 
literature  of  the  fifth  century  B.C.     In  one  of  Pindar's  Threnoi, 

*  Miss  Harrison,  Prolegomena,  pp.  603  ff.  :  Dieterich,  Nekyia,  p.  128.  It  may 
be  noted  that  the  end  of  Orpheus  also  suggests  one  story  of  Dionysus. 
Orpheus  was  torn  in  pieces  by  women,  G.  iv.  520.  Plutarch  de  sera  numinum 
vindicta  565  F  on  the  recovery  of  Semele  and  the  place  of  Lethe. 

•  Diogenes  Lacrtius,  viii.  21  and  36  : 

A.  l<pi]  re  Karafias  e's  diaiTav  rr]v  koltu, 
18(11/  eKacTTovs'   dia<pepeiv  Sk  Trdfj.woXu 

Toiis  HvdayopL<TTas  tujv  vsKpuv.     fuivoLcTt  yap 

T01JT0l(7i  TOV    UXoVTUVa  (TVfffflTeTv   i(j>7} 

5i'  evae^eiav. 

B.  (vx^p^  6e6y  Xe7eis 
ei  roij  p'irov  fxeaTolaiv  ijdeTai.  ^vvuiv. 

See  also  Dieterich,  Nekyia,  pp.  78,  129  ;  Ettig,  Acherwitica,  p.  288. 


248  VIRGIL 

for  instance,  we  read:  "The  body  of  all  men  is  subject 
to  all-powerful  death,  but  alive  there  yet  remains  an  image 
of  the  living  man  ;  for  that  alone  is  from  the  gods.  It 
sleeps  when  the  limbs  are  active,  but  to  them  that 
sleep  in  many  a  dream  it  revealeth  an  award  of  joy  or 
sorrow  drawing  near."  ^ 

The  ideas  of  reward  and  punishment  after  death  stamped 
themselves  upon  the  common  mind.  Cephalus,  in  the 
Republic,  tells  how  in  advancing  age  he  is  haunted  by 
them.^  The  forms  which  reward  and  punishment  would 
take  were  also  well  known — as  is  shown  by  the  dialogue 
in  the  Frogs  between  Dionysus  and  the  slave  newly  landed 
in  Hades — 

Dionysus.     Well,  and  what  have  we  here  ? 

Slave.  Darkness — and  mud. 

Dionysus.     Did  you  see  any  of  the  perjurers  here, 

And  father-beaters,  as  he  said  we  should  ? 
Slave.  Why,  didn't  you  ? 

Dionysus.  I .''  Lots.^ 

Public  opinion  was  just  as  clear  about  the  rewards :  "  the 
blessings  which  Musaeus  and  his  son  give  from  the  gods 
are  gayer  still  (veaviKwrepa) ;  for  in  their  story  they  take 
them  down  to  Hades  and  make  them  sit  down,  and  then 
they  get  up  a  banquet  of  the  'holy'  and  display  them, 
crowned,  with  nothing  to  do  henceforth  and  for  ever  but  to 
get  drunk.  For  the  finest  possible  prize  for  virtue,  they 
seem  to  think,  is  eternal  drunkenness."* 

'^  Kol  (TtS/ua  fxkv  Travruiv  '^Trerai,  Oavdrqi  irepLdOevet, 

^wov  8'  iTL  XeiweTai  aliivos  eidwXov  to  yap  tan  [jlovov 

iK  dewV  evoei  5^  irpacraovriiiv  fxeXicov,  drap  evdovreaaiv  iv  ttoWols  oveLpois 
delKvvffi  TepTrvQv  ecpeprroiaav  xt^Xewuf  re  Kplcnv. 

Pindar,  Threni  it.  96. 
See  Dr  James  Adam,  "  Doctrine  of  the  Celestial  Origin  of  the  Soul  from  Pindar 
to  Plato,"  in  his  Vitality  of  P/atonism,  1911. 

*  Rep  ,  i.  330,  D  KarayeXuifievoi  r^ws  rdre  dr]  ffTpi<pov(Ti.  ttjv   ^vxv"  M  dX-qOets 
&cnp. 

*  Aristophanes,  Frogs,  273  (Murray).     Dionysus  looks  at  the  audience  as  he 
speaks  these  last  words. 

*  Plato,  Kep.  ii.  363  c.     See  Dr  Adam's  notes.     Weil,  Etudes,  p.  41  ;  "  c'est 
un  ideal  quelque  peu  thrace." 


HADES  249 

The  interesting  word  here  is  "  the  holy,"  which  is  almost 
a  technical  term  for  the  initiated.^  It  shows  us  at  once  the 
weak  spot  in  the  Mysteries.  They  are  not  in  any  decisive 
way  connected  with  morality.  The  language  of  the  gold 
plates,  already  quoted,  is  beautiful,  but  what  is  meant  by 
"pure"?  Is  it  actually  and  spiritually  "pure,"  or  only 
ceremonially  and  technically?  We  may  be  fairly  sure  that, 
with  the  majority  of  people,  there  was  a  general  consensus 
of  opinion  that  to  secure  the  joys  of  "eternal  drunkenness" 
it  was  only  necessary  to  be  initiated,  that  a  sacrament,  in 
fact,  could  veto  the  operation  of  moral  law.  Virtue,  says 
Plato,  is  hard  ;  wickedness  pleasant  and  profitable ;  and 
then  "  quacks  and  prophets  go  to  rich  men's  doors  and 
persuade  them  that  they  have  power  from  the  gods,  by 
means  of  sacrifices  and  chants,  to  cure  any  wrong  deed  of 
their  own  or  their  ancestors  in  a  course  of  pleasures  and 
feasts  "  ;  they  quote  Homer  to  the  effect  that  even  the  gods 
themselves  can  be  won  by  prayer,  that  men  turn  them 
aside  by  sacrifices  and  winning  supplications,  by  drink 
offering  and  the  smoke  of  the  victim  ;  they  produce  piles 
of  books  by  Musaeus  and  Orpheus,  sacrificial  liturgies  in 
fact,  and  "  persuade  men  and  cities  that  there  are  absolu- 
tions and  atonements  by  means  of  sacrifices  and  pleasures 
for  them  while  they  live,  and,  when  we  are  dead,  the  mys- 
teries {TeXeraC),  as  they  call  them,  rid  us  of  trouble,  over 
there;  but  if  we  have  not  sacrificed,  terrible  things  await  us."^ 

Yet  Plato  did  not  reject  Orphism.^  His  apocalypses  (it 
one  may  use  the  word)  are  full  of  Orphic  and  Pythagorean 
ideas.  The  accounts  of  the  other  world  given  by  him  in  the 
Phaedrus^  the  Gorgias,  the  Phaedo,  and  the  Republic  have 
been  woven  by  Doring  into  a  complete  and  harmonious 
whole.*  The  whole  story  of  the  soul  is  given  in  the 
Phaedrus — its  condition  before  incarnation,  the  fall  due  to 

^  The  reader  will  remember  the  use  of  the  term  "saints"  in  the  New  Testament. 

^  Plato,  Rep.  ii.  364  A-365  A.  Homer,  Iliad.,  ix.  497-501.  See  Robertson 
Smith,  Religion  of  the  Semites,  lect.  vii.  p.  261,  on  the  gaiety  of  sacrifices. 

*See  article  by  Mr  F.  M.  Cornford,  in  the  Classical  Review,  Dec.  1903,  "  Plato 
and  Orpheus." 

*  A.  Doring,  Die  eschatologischen  Mythen  Platos,  in  Archiv  fiir  Gesch.  der 
Fhilosopkie,  vol.  vi.  1893.     Weil,  Ettides,  pp.  65  f.,  82. 


2  50  VIRGIL 

the  inability  of  reason  to  control  desire,  the  first  incarna- 
tion and  its  meaning  (o-co/xa  =  cr^/xa),^  the  judgement  with 
punishment  or  reward,  and  lastly  the  new  choice  of  life.  It 
is  in  the  Gorgias  that  the  most  vivid  account  is  given  of 
the  judgement  after  death.  "The  judge  must  be  naked, 
dead,  with  very  soul  contemplating  the  very  soul  of  each 
immediately  on  death  {^avTr}  rr]  ^Jrvxi)  avrrjv  rrjv  yjrvxw  Oecopovvra 
e^ai^vtj?  cnroOavovTog  tKacTTOv),  alone  without  a  kinsman  be- 
side him,  all  the  trappings  of  his  life  left  behind  on  earth, 
that  the  judgement  may  be  just  (523  E)."  "Everything  is 
visible  in  the  soul  when  it  is  stripped  of  the  body.  Every- 
thing that  belongs  to  it  by  nature,  and  the  results  in  a 
man's  soul  of  every  pursuit"  (524  D.)  The  judge  does  not 
know  whose  soul  it  is — it  may  be  a  king's  soul,  which  he 
finds  unsound  through  and  through,  "  full  of  scars  of  deceit 
and  injustice,  which  each  man's  deeds  have  left  printed 
(eicojuLop^aro)  upon  the  soul,  all  crooked  with  lying  and 
trickery,  nothing  straight"  (524  E).  Such  were  Tantalus, 
Sisyphus,  and  Tityos  in  Homer,  "  most  dynasts  being  bad  " 
(526  B).  The  main  concern  of  life  is  to  go  to  the  judge  with 
the  healthiest  possible  soul,  so  made  by  the  search  for  truth 
{rrjv  a\i]6eiav  o-kottwv  526  D).  "For  you  will  suffer  nothing 
terrible,  if  you  will  really  be  honourable  and  good,  and 
practise  virtue"  (527  D).  It  should  be  noticed  that  nothing 
is  said  here  about  service  of  the  state,  which  plays  a  large 
part  in  the  judgement  as  described  by  Cicero  and  Virgil. 

In  the  Phaedo  we  have  the  topography  of  the  other  world, 
its  underground  rivers  of  fire  and  mud,  and  its  abysses. 
The  souls  judged  are  divided  into  five  classes.  "Average" 
people  are  sent  by  way  of  Acheron  to  the  Acherusian 
lake  for  shorter  or  longer  terms,  to  be  rewarded  and 
purified  as  they  deserve,  and  thence  they  pass  to  be  born 
again  as  animals  (113  D,  A).  Incurable  sinners  go  at  once 
to  Tartarus  for  ever  (113  E).  Those  guilty  of  great  sins,  but 
not  too  great  for  punishment,  go  to  Tartarus  for  a  year, 
when,  if  those  they  have  wronged  are  willing,  they  may 
pass  to  the  Acherusian  lake  (114  A,  B).  The  fourth  class, 
who  have  been  pre-eminent  for  holiness,  "ascend  to  their 

^  The  doctrine  may  be  compared  with  the  Hindu  Karma. 


HADES  251 

pure  habitation  and  dwell  on  the  earth's  surface.  And 
those  of  them  who  have  sufficiently  purified  themselves 
with  philosophy  live  thenceforth  without  bodies  and  pro- 
ceed to  dwelling-s  fairer  than  these,  which  are  not  easily 
described"  (114  B,  C).  "A  man  of  sense,"  concludes  Plato, 
"  will  not  insist  that  these  things  are  exactly  as  I  have 
described  them.  But  I  think  he  will  believe  that  some- 
thing of  the  kind  is  true  of  the  soul  and  her  habitations." 
In  the  last  book  of  the  Republic  Plato  adds  more  on  choice 
in  reincarnation,  but  as  Virgil  passes  over  this  we  need  not 
now  discuss  it. 

The  Orphism  of  Plato  is  thus  quite  distinct  from  the 
confused  thinking  of  the  mass  of  Orphics,  and  quite  distinct 
too  from  the  miracle-plays  which  Clement  of  Alexandria 
so  pitilessly  describes.  Which  of  these  forms  was  dominant 
at  any  given  time  is  a  question  perhaps  hard  to  answer  ; 
which  influenced  most  the  development  of  Greek  thought 
it  is  easier  to  say. 

Before  we  leave  Greece  for  Rome,  one  point  already 
mentioned  may  be  recalled.  A  short  study  of  popular 
Orphism  and  a  little  acquaintance  with  Orphic  mysteries 
will  help  to  explain  the  real  greatness  of  Epicurus.  Neo- 
Pythagoreans,  Neo-Platonists,  religious  men,  and  men  who 
made  their  living  by  religion,  united  in  giving  him  a  low 
place  in  the  hell  he  denied.  But  his  bold  application  of  the 
science  of  Democritus  to  religious  questions,  his  reference 
of  all  existence  to  law,  in  spite  of  all  inconsistencies  and 
failures,  was,  as  Lucretius  says,  a  great  victory. 

Quare  religio  pedibus  subiecta  vicissim 
opteritur,  nos  exaequat  victoria  caelo  ^  (i.  78). 

To-day  we  are  able  to  sympathize  with  both  sides  in  the 
quarrel,  and  to  avail  ourselves  of  all  they  had  of  permanent 
value.  It  is  part  of  the  greatness  of  Virgil  that  after  an 
Epicurean  training  he  was  able  to  grasp  and  use  the  real 
contribution  of  the  other  side,  without  surrendering  the 
freedom  which  Lucretius  had  taught  him  to  prize. 

*  "Therefore  religion  is  put  under  foot  and  trampled  upon  in  turn;  us  his 
victory  brings  level  with  heaven"  (Munro). 


252  VIRGIL 


III 


The  Italians  seem  to  have  developed  no  very  definite  or 
well  organized  scheme  of  things  divine,  though  it  is  clear 
that  they  had  some  notions  of  an  after-world,  not  less 
dreadful  for  being  dim.  There  are  in  Etruscan  tombs 
pictures  of  demons  of  frightful  aspect.  One,  called  Tuchul- 
cha,  is  drawn  brandishing  a  snake,  and  yelling.  Another, 
who  occurs  very  frequently,  is  called  Charun — a  perversion 
of  Charon.  He  has  a  large  mouth  and  teeth,  wings  on  his 
back,  and  a  hooked  nose  ;  he  carries  a  hammer,  and,  to 
crown  all,  he  is  painted  green.  In  one  picture  he  stands 
by  Achilles,  who  is  sacrificing  his  prisoners  in  honour  of 
Patroclus.^ 

In  the  age  of  Virgil  two  great  men  of  letters  dealt 
deliberately  with  the  other  world  in  works  which  are  of 
interest  and  importance  to  the  student  of  the  sixth  Aeneid. 
In  his  attack  upon  the  gods  Lucretius  could  not  overlook 
the  popular  dread  of  punishment  after  death,  and  he  dis- 
cussed it  at  some  length.  Cicero  likewise,  imitating  Plato, 
concluded  his  Republic  with  a  myth  of  his  own,  which  turns 
upon  the  future  hfe. 

A  thorough-going  materialist,  Lucretius  energetically 
argues  for  the  mortality  of  the  soul.  It  is  like  the  bbdy 
material,  and  Nature  has  a  claim  upon  all  matter  for  her 
own  purposes,  and  only  lends  it  to  us — 

vitaqua  mancipio  nulli  datur,  omnibus  usu  -  (Lucr.  iii. 
791). 

Even  if  time  gather  again  our  matter  after  our  decease, 
rearrange  it  in  the  same  way,  and  again  give  it  the  light 
of  life,  that  has  nothing  to  do  with  us  when  once  our  con- 
sciousness of  identity  has  been  broken — 

interrupta  semel  cum  sit  repetentia  nostri  (iii.  851). 

^  Boissier,  H«race  et  Virgile,  pp.  94-7  (tr.  87-90). 

*  Cf.  a  slightly  ditferent  turn  of  the  same  thought  in  Euripides,  Phoenissae,  555 
oOroi  TO  -xpyjixar  tSia  Keicrrjvrai  ^poroi,  \  rd  Twi/  6eu!V  d'  lx<"^^^  e-rtfieXovfieda.'  | 


HADES  253 

No,  the  great  truth  is  that  mortal  life  ends  for  us  in  im- 
mortal death — 

mortalem  vitam  mors  cum  immortalis  ademit  (iii.  869). 

Philosophy  thus  effects  the  emancipation  of  man's  mind  by 
driving  headlong  out  of  doors  "  the  dread  of  something 
after  death,"  which  disturbs  and  paralyses  all  within.^ 
Nature  cannot  afford  to  dismiss  any  matter  to  Tartarus ; 
her  economy  is  our  salvation  (iii.  964-6).  But  what  of 
Avernus  ?  Is  it  not  the  mouth  of  Hell,  as  people  said  ?  ^ 
No,  the  fact  is  that  Avernus  near  Cumae  is  only  one  of 
several  such  places,  where  birds  and  other  creatures  cannot 
breathe  because  of  sulphur  fumes,  an  entirely  natural 
phenomenon  easily  explained  by  natural  law.^  The  stories 
which  poets,  and  Ennius  in  particular,  tell  of  hell  are  really 
true  of  this  life — Tityos  is  merely  the  lustful  man,  while 
Sisyphus  is  the  politician  with  ambitions,  defeated  again  and 
again  at  the  poU.^  In  short,  the  only  real  hell  is  the  hell 
fools  make  of  their  lives  on  earth — 

hie  Acherusia  fit  stultorum  denique  vita  (iii.  1023), 

Lastly,  as  if  Lucretius  had  divined  what  the  sixth  Aeneid 
would  be,  he  applied  to  one  of  its  central  doctrines  the  most 
splendid  reductio  ad  absurdum,  and  finally  disposed  of  the 
ideas  of  immortality  and  transmigration.  He  pictures  the 
transmigrant  souls  jostling  to  get  places  in  new  bodies.  Is 
it  at  birth,  or  perhaps  at  conception,  he  asks,  that  the  im- 
mortal beings  elbow  one  another  in  their  headlong  eager- 
ness for  mortal  members  ?  Or  do  they  arrange  to  go  on  the 
plan  of  "  first  come,  first  served  ?  "  ^ 

In  the  first  book  of  the  Tusciilan  Disputations  Cicero 
discusses  the  immortality  of  the  soul  as  a  philosophical 
question,  and  in  the  epilogue  to  his  Republic  he  gives  a  vivid 

^  Et  melus  ilk  for  as  prae.ceps  Ackeruniis  agendus, 

funditus  humanam  qui  vitam  turbat  ab  into 
omnia  suffundens  mortis  nigrore  (iii.  37-9). 

*  Strabo,  c.  244,  tells  us  that  this  idea  is  as  old  as  Ephorus.  He  seems  to 
imply  that  the  story  about  the  birds  was  fiction,  or  had  at  least  ceased  to  be  true. 

^  Lucr.  vi.  738-68,  omnia  quae  naturali  raiione  geruntur  (760). 

*  Lucr.  iii.  978- 1023.  »  Lucr.  iii.  776-83. 


2  54  VIRGIL 

and  startling  presentation  of  the  after-life.  It  is  in  the  form 
of  a  dream,  which  came  to  Scipio  Africanus  the  younger 
outside  the  walls  of  Carthage.  He  finds  himself  with  the 
elder  Africanus  and  his  own  father,  Aemilius  Paullus,  in  a 
place  high  and  bright  and  full  of  stars,  which  proves  to  be 
the  Milky  Way.  From  it  he  beholds  the  world,  and  the 
sense  of  infinite  space  and  infinite  time  is  brought  home  to 
him.^  The  soul,  he  learns,  is  but  a  prisoner  in  the  body  ; 
the  life  men  know  on  earth  being  more  really  death.  It 
comes  from  the  eternal  fires  called  stars,  for  the  stars  are 
animated  with  a  divine  intelligence.  All  on  earth  is 
transitory  except  the  soul,  the  gift  of  the  gods,  while  beyond 
the  moon  all  is  eternal.  The  mind  is  the  man  {mens  cuiusque 
is  est  quisque),  and  it  is  divine.  Man's  work  is  the  service  of 
the  community  of  which  he  is  a  member.  "  For  all  who  have 
saved,  helped,  or  increased  their  country  {patriani),  there  is  a 
sure  and  definite  place  in  the  sky  {certiim  esse  in  caelo 
definitufn  locum),  where  in  happiness  they  may  enjoy  eternal 
life.  For  to  that  supreme  God,  who  rules  the  universe, 
nothing  that  is  on  earth  is  more  grateful  than  those  gather- 
ings and  ordered  societies  of  men  which  are  called  states. 
The  rulers  and  saviours  of  these  proceed  hence  and  return 
again  hither  " — to  the  Milky  Way.  The  universe  consists  of 
nine  related  spheres,  of  which  the  outermost,  which  guards 
and  contains  the  rest,  is  the  supreme  God  himself  It  is  he 
who  has  given  man  his  soul,  and  without  his  order  {iniussu 
eius)  man  must  not  leave  life,  lest  he  "seem  to  have 
abandoned  the  hum.an  task  assigned  by  God." 

The  myth  is  a  medley  of  borrowed  matter.  It  is  chiefly 
valuable  for  our  present  purpose  because  it  shows  so  clearly 
the  ideas  of  a  Roman  of  culture  and  sensibility.  Infinite 
time  and  infinite  space — the  centre  of  them  for  the  Roman 
in  Rome.  The  gods  have  set  him  there,  and  without  their 
leave  he  must  not  quit  his  post.  No  one  will  quarrel  with 
such  a  view,  however  fantastic  the  setting,  and  we  shall  find 
that  Virgil  holds  it  fully  as  strongly  as  Cicero. 

As  for  the  tales  which  the  poets  in  the  old  days  had  told 

^  Cf.  Seneca,  Nat,  Quaest.,  i.  Prologue  §  7  ;  and  Carlyle's  Reminiscences,  vol.  i. 
p.  44  (of  James  Carlyle). 


HADES  255 

about  Hades,  Cicero  several  times  lets  us  know  that  they 
are  freely  ridiculed — should  not  a  philosopher  be  ashamed 
to  boast  that  he  is  not  afraid  of  such  things  ?  ^  For  people — 
and  even  Epicureans — did  fear  them.  On  the  other  hand, 
there  were  those  who  marked  with  anxiety  the  passing  of 
belief  in  Hades.  Long  before  Polybius  had  said  that  the 
scrupulous  fear  of  the  gods  kept  the  Roman  commonwealth 
together — that  it  was  not  idly  that  the  ancients  had  instilled 
into  the  vulgar  the  belief  in  punishments  in  Hell ;  there 
was  risk  to  the  state  in  the  rejection  of  these  beliefs.^  So, 
in  Virgil's  own  day,  the  historian  Diodorus  remarked  that 
the  old  tales — "  the  mythology,"  fictitious  as  it  might  be — 
did  contribute  to  piety  and  righteousness  in  the  many.^  The 
restoration  of  religion,  attempted  by  Augustus,  was  no  doubt 
in  part  a  police  measure  to  counteract  the  spirit  of  the 
times,  though  that  it  was  not  merely  this  is  proved  by  the 
clear  traces  of  superstition  and  romanticism  in  that  hard 
and  shrewd  character. 

The  poet's  view  of  the  matter  will  probably  not  be  that 
of  the  pure  philosopher.  Still  less  will  he  take  up  the 
position  of  the  practical  moralist  or  of  the  Emperor,  the 
arch-policeman  of  the  state.  Yet  it  is  quite  possible  that, 
however  unphilosophic  and  unpractical,  he  may  come  nearer 
to  the  truth  of  things,  and  that  is  what  we  have  now  to  see. 

In  the  first  Georgt'cYngil  gently  laughed  at  "the  Elysian 
fields  which  Greece  admires";*  he  could  never  deride  or 
attack  in  the  style  of  Lucretius.  In  the  second  book  he 
spoke  with  admiration  of  the  philosopher  victorious  over 
"  all  fears  "  and  "  the  noise  of  greedy  Acheron,"  ^  but  he  did 
so  with  some  consciousness  of  detachment  from  him — his 
own  happiness  lying  elsewhere. 

In  his  story  of  Orpheus  in  the  fourth  Georgic  he  has 
given  a  sketch  of  Hades  himself,  but,  as  the  dominant 
motive  is  the  recovery  of  Eurydice,  it  will  not  surprise  us 
that  the  treatment  leans  more  to  literature  than  to  religion. 

^  Tusculans,  i.  21,  48.  »  Polybius,  vi.  56. 

*  Diod.  Sic.  i.  2  -q  tCv  iv  ^Sov  /xvdoXoyia,  rrjv  vwoOecTLv  TreTrXaafi^vrji'  €xov(Ta, 
TToXXd  (Tu/ijSdXXeroi  rdis  avOpwiron  irpos  evcr^^eiav  Kal  5iKaioffvvr]y, 

*  C  i.  38  qiuxmvis  Elysios  viiretur  Graecia  campos. 
'  G.  ii.  ^^o-'^fe/ix  qui potuit,  etc. 


ZS6  VIRGIL 

It  is,  in  fact,  the  Hades  of  literary  convention.^  The 
passage  which  most  concerns  us  at  present,  though  not  that 
which  most  permanently  moves  us,  runs  as  follows  in  Lord 
Burghclere's  rendering  ^ — 

Then  through  the  jaws  of  Taenarus  he  passed, 

The  cavernous  gates  of  Dis ;  the  grove  of  gloom, 

Wherein  the  horror  of  the  darkness  broods, 

And  stood  before  the  powers  of  nether  Hell 

With  their  dread  king ;  and  wrestled  with  the  hearts 

That  know  not  pity  for  the  prayers  of  men. 

There,  startled  by  his  song,  wan  spectres  flocked 

Forth  from  the  utmost  deeps  of  Erebus, 

Dim  phantoms  that  had  lost  the  light  of  day, 

Swarming  around  like  flights  of  myriad  birds, 

Who  seek  the  sheltered  wood  when  winter  storm 

Or  chilly  evening  drives  them  from  the  hills : 

Matrons  and  husbands,  and  the  forms  long  dead 

Of  high-souled  heroes,  boys  and  spouseless  girls, 

And  well-loved  youths  who  in  their  parents'  sight 

Were  laid  to  rest  upon  untimely  pyres. 

All  these  were  they  whom  black  Cocytus  binds 

With  darkling  ooze,  with  fringe  of  loathly  reeds, 

With  sleepy  waves  that  lap  the  loveless  shore ; 

They  whom  abhorrent  Styx  for  ever  chains. 

Girt  with  the  ninefold  fetters  of  its  flood. 

The  very  denizens  of  deepest  Hell 

Listened,  astonied,  to  the  strains  he  sang  : 

The  Furies  with  their  locks  of  livid  snakes, 

Grim  Cerberus  with  triple  mouth  agape. 

While  the  hushed  whirlwind  stayed  Lvion's  wheel. 

The  description,  one  might  guess,  may  date  from  Virgil's 
Alexandrine  days.  If  the  story  is  true  that  the  fall  of 
Gallus  involved  a  new  conclusion  to  the  book,^  as  seems 
generally  agreed,  it  is  quite  possible  that  in  the  episode  of 

^  Similar  descriptions  are  in  Horace,  Odes,  ii.  13  and  14  ;  iii.  11. 

*  G.  iv.  467  f. 

'  Servius  ad  Eel.  x./uti  au£ef7i  amicus  Vei'gilii,  adeo  ut  quartus  Georgicorum 
a  medio  usque  ad  Jinem  eius  laudes  teneret ;  quas  postea  iubente  Augusto  in 
Ai'istaei fabtilatn  commutavit. 


HADES  257 

Aristaeus,  of  which  this  is  a  not  specially  relevant  part, 
Virgil  used  old  material.  The  student  of  philosophy  or 
religion  might  ask  the  poet  how  he  reconciled  this  literary 
hell  with  the  Pythagoreanism  of  the  earlier  part  of  the  book 
(1.  221),  where  he  speaks  of  God  pervading  all  things,  and 
of  their  life,  drawn  from  His,  ascending  after  death  to  the 
stars.  Whatever  reconciliations  readers  may  make,  probably 
the  poet  would  be  content  to  make  none. 

When  he  began  to  draw  Hades  in  earnest,  Virgil 
remembered  this  passage.  The  lines,  "  Matrons  and 
husbands  "  to  "  untimely  pyres,"  he  took  over  as  they  stood, 
but  the  simile  he  altered.  The  alteration  was  slight,  but 
it  is  significant  of  the  poet's  own  change  of  mind  and  mood. 
The  birds  in  the  Georgic  are  driven  by  storm  from  hill 
to  wood.  In  the  Aeneid  it  is  "the  chill  of  the  year"  that 
"  chases  them  oversea  and  sends  them  to  sunny  lands,"  and 
the  poet  adds  the  old  simile  of  the  fallen  leaves — 

oil]  irep  (pvWwv  yevf?/,  tou]  Se  Kai  avSpoov  (^Iliad,  vi.  1 46). 

In  place  of  a  pretty  simile  we  have  two  deeply  moving 
analogies  of  man's  life.  Autumn  comes,  and  the  leaves 
fall — "surely,"  said  the  Hebrew  poet,  "surely  the  people 
is  grass."  The  birds  seek  another  home,  "and  man  goeth 
to  his  long  home."  The  shades,  which  Aeneas  sees,  have 
no  longer  any  heart  for  music  ;  they  think  only  of  crossing 
Acheron — 

tendebantque  manus  ripae  ulterioris  amore. 

The  picturesque  figures  which  listened  to  Orpheus  in  the 
Georgic  have  all  the  air  of  being  borrowed  from  Greek 
painters  ;  they  were  borrowed  by  Horace  more  than  once, 
and  not  without  a  touch  of  humour.^  If  Ixion  reappears 
in  the  Ae^ieid,  it  is  in  more  seriousness.  There  no  casual 
visitant,  not  even  an  Orpheus,  can  interfere  with  eternal 
law.  We  are  nearer  Thomas  of  Celano  and  his  great 
hymn — 

Mors  stupebit  et  Natura 

cum  resurget  creatura 

iudicanti  responsura. 

*  Odes,  ii.  13  ;  iii.  il. 
17 


2  58  VIRGIL 

He  at  least  is  doing  with  the  apocalypses  of  the  early 
Church  what  Virgil  did  with  the  Orphic  and  Pythagorean 
apocalypses,  from  which  those  are  in  part  descended. 


IV 

We  now  come  to  Virgil's  sixth  book.  We  have  seen 
something  of  the  long  development  of  men's  ideas  upon 
the  other  world,  and  we  find  here  as  elsewhere  that  Virgil 
tries  to  sum  up  all  that  is  of  value  in  the  traditions,  the 
philosophies,  and  the  fancies  of  the  past.^  The  phrase 
may  be  vague,  but  a  poet  has  his  own  scheme  of  values, 
which  is  not  the  philosopher's  nor  the  historian's.  Much 
that  to  them  is  idle  is  to  the  poet  significant,  and  he  will 
not  let  it  go.  The  result  is  one  that  might  have  been 
foreseen.  Full  of  beauty,  of  suggestion,  of  moral  worth 
and  religious  feeling,  the  book  is  not  rigidly  consistent 
with  itself.  Attempts  have  been  made,  notably  one  by 
Norden,  to  bring  everything  into  harmony,  but  it  must 
be  owned  that  they  have  not  been  very  happy.  The 
question  first  to  be  answered  is,  whether  it  is  conceivably 
possible  to  give  a  presentment  of  a  world  which  none 
of  us  have  seen,  and  to  give  it  with  the  very  considerable 
precision  which  marks  Virgil's  treatment  as  contrasted 
with  the  loose  and  vague  descriptions  of  others,  and  not 
in  doing  it  to  involve  oneself  in  contradictions. 

Aeneas  prepared  for  his  journey  by  sacrificing  in  the  most 
legitimate  way,  but  if  we  are  to  form  any  strictly  spiritual 
conception  of  ^that  other  world  and  its  powers,  what  can 
we  suppose  to  be  the  efficacy  of  sacrifice?  If  the  world 
below  (or  beyond)  is  governed  through  and  through  by 
moral  law,  as  Plato  taught  and  as  Virgil  implies,  what  rele- 
vancy have  black  cattle?  Would  not  some  more  moral 
preparation  of  heart  be  preferable  ?  Of  course  it  would  seem 
so  to  a  modern  mind,  but  Virgil  had  not  to  part  company 
with  the  religion  of  his  fathers,  bound  up  with  which  was, 
or  seemed  to  be,  what  hope  remained    of  the  triumph  of 

1  Cf.  Servius  ad  Aen.  vi.  719,  Miscet  philosophiae  figmenta  poetica,  ei  ostendit 
tarn  quod  est  vulgare,  quam  quod  contitut  Veritas  et  ratio  naturalis. 


HADES  259 

moral  ideas  in  the  Roman  world.  Similarly,  what  are  we 
to  make  of  the  golden  bough,  which  Aeneas  must  take  to 
Proserpine  ?  It  is  not,  so  far  as  we  know,  borrowed  from 
any  Greek  apocalypse  or  other  Greek  source.  It  is  not 
the  golden  tablet  of  the  Orphic  grave.  However  it  may  be 
connected  with  tree  worship,  as  Dr  Frazer's  famous  book 
suggests,  Virgil  is  moving  in  a  different  order  of  ideas 
altogether  from  those  primitive  fancies  and  usages  connected 
with  woods  and  cornfields.  It  is  quite  possible  that  the 
thing  is  originally  a  symbol  of  something  connected  with 
Nature-worship  ;  but  in  Virgil  it  is  a  borrowed  symbol,  and 
its  precise  significance  it  is  hard,  if  not  impossible,  to  guess. 
But  we  must  not  press  the  poet. 

It  will  perhaps  be  enough  to  say  that,  just  as  to-day  the 
ritual  and  symbolism  of  a  rejected  faith  may  appeal  to  the 
mind  in  which  aesthetic  considerations  outweigh  philosophy, 
— yes,  and  also  in  certain  moods  to  the  mind  in  which 
philosophy  still  rules,  which  refuses  to  accept  any  dogmata, 
whatever  their  aesthetic  company,  unless  justified  by  reason, 
— so,  side  by  side  with  all  the  teaching  of  Epicurus,  Plato, 
Pythagoras,  and  the  Stoics,  a  crowd  of  usages  and  fancies, 
dreams  and  hopes,  from  out  of  the  past,  appealed  to  the  poet 
with  all  the  charms  of  beauty  and  association.  This  appeal, 
not  valid  against  the  findings  of  reason,  but  surely  valid  so 
far  as  to  claim  the  attention  of  philosophy,  had  at  all  events 
a  claim  to  be  heard  in  the  highest  court  to  which  Virgil 
had  access,  that  of  poetic  truth.  We  may  not  be  able  to 
reconcile  by  logic,  still  less  perhaps  by  philosophy,  all  that 
Virgil  tells  us  in  this  book,  but  it  is  all  full  of  beauty,  and 
beauty  has  a  logic  and  philosophy  of  its  own ;  its  symbols 
are  not  to  be  treated  as  algebraic  letters  representing  so 
many  logical  or  philosophic  ideas,  into  which  they  can 
be  converted  without  trouble,  but  as  combining  to  open 
avenues  of  thought  and  emotion  by  following  which  the 
mind  will  find  itself  at  last  not  far  from  truth. 

When  the  required  sacrifices  have  been  duly  made, 
Aeneas  and  the  Sibyl  start  their  journey  ;  and  the  poet 
addresses  to  the  gods  who  rule  over  souls,  to  the  shades 
and    Chaos   and    Phlegethon,   the   prayer   that  he  may  be 


26o  VIRGIL 

allowed  to  tell  of  what  he  has  heard,  of  things  in  the  depths 
of  earth  and  night.  Through  darkness,  solitude,  night,  and 
shadow,  hero  and  Sibyl  go  through  the  vacuous  land  of 
Dis,  the  empty  realms,  as  men  feel  their  way  through 
a  wood  on  a  night  when  the  clouds  about  the  moon  give 
just  enough  light  to  make  darkness  visible.^  About  the  very 
jaws  of  Hades  hang  Sorrow,  Care,  Disease,  Age,  Fear, 
Hunger,  Toil,  the  common  ills  of  man,  and  pre-eminent 
among  the  Furies  (as  one  would  expect  of  Virgil)  death- 
dealing  War  and  mad  Discord.  Here  is  the  elm  where 
nest  vain  dreams,  and  here  the  substanceless  forms  of 
Chimaeras,  Scyllas,  Gorgons,  and  Centaurs,  separated 
by  the  river  Acheron  from  the  actual  dwellings  of  the 
dead. 

Acheron  is  reached,  and  Charon  is  seen.  The  poet  draws 
him  in  a  few  lines  with  extraordinary  life  and  power;  no  one 
would  take  him  for  a  ghost  or  spirit,  so  lifelike  he  is  with 
his  rough  garb  and  his  crazy  boat,  his  eyes  of  flame  and 
his  clear  brain — 

cruda  deo  viridisque  senectus. 

On  the  river  banks  are  the  throngs  of  the  dead,  many  as  the 
leaves  of  autumn,  the  fallen  leaves.  The  simile  is  doubly 
effective,  at  once  for  its  suggestion  of  mortality  and  the 
added  awfulness  of  numbers.  We  never  realize  how  many 
are  the  leaves  till  they  fall,  and  here  are  the  dead  gathered 
from  how  many  homes,  here  one  and  there  one,  swept 
together  like  the  fallen  leaves  to  one  spot,  impressive  for 
their  mere  numbers,  only  here  to  be  understood.  To  the 
simile  of  the  leaves  is  added,  as  we  saw,  that  of  the  birds. 
A  blind  instinct  within  drives  the  dead  to  Acheron,  and 
teaches  them  they  must  cross  it.  The  contrast  with  the  simile 
in  the  Georgics  has  been  already  remarked,  but  a  further  point 
calls  for  attention  here.  As  we  saw,  the  picture  in  the 
Georgics  was  drawn  with  something  of  Virgil's  early  play- 
fulness. Here  the  comparison  with  the  birds  is  in  keeping 
with  the  whole  Virgilian  Hades — life  survives  in  some 
degree  even  in  death,  and  the  other  world,  void  and 
^  See  note  on  p.  1 6. 


HADES  261 

empty  though  it  be  in  contrast  with  the  Nature  we  know,  is 
yet  throbbing  with  earnestness  and  purpose.  Right 
through  the  story,  through  the  mythological,  the 
religious,  and  the  philosophic  contributions,  runs  meaning, 
intention,  effort.  Every  human  personality  we  meet  is 
touched  with  the  sense  of  the  seriousness  of  being.  Life  is 
not  extinct  at  all;  the  soul  is  quit  of  its  encumbrances  and 
more  in  earnest  than  ever.  It  is  the  very  antithesis  of  the 
Hades  of  the  Odyssey.  The  Orphic  and  Platonic  doctrine  that 
the  body  is  a  tomb  of  the  soul  {a-wjua  and  crrjixa)  we  shall  meet 
explicitly  later  on,  but  surely  ^v•e  have  it  here  already 
implicitly. 

Through  the  darkness  comes  a  dim  and  sad  figure — barely 
recognizable  as  the  ghost  of  Palinurus,  the  unburied 
steersman. 1  This  is  clearly  suggested  by  the  similar 
episode  in  the  Odyssey.^  where  Odysseus  sees  among  the 
dead  Elpenor,  whom  he  had  supposed  to  be  alive.  The 
ancient  world  at  large  had  gloomy  thoughts  about  the 
unburied  and  their  lot  in  the  other  world,  in  spite  of  the 
assurance  philosophers  felt.  We  cannot  imagine  the 
appearance  of  such  a  story  as  this  in  the  Gorgias,  but  the 
popular  idea  was  long-lived.  Four  centuries  later  Synesius 
tells  us  that  he  and  his  fellow  passengers  on  a  ship  in  distress 
fastened  gold  or  jewels  to  themselves  in  order  to  tempt  any, 
who  might  find  their  dead  bodies  on  the  beach,  to  bury 
them  in  return  for  the  gift  they  brought.^  Elpenor  was  in 
no  more  distress  than  any  other  ghost.  His  desire  for  a 
grave  was  a  natural  one  ;  and  his  suggestion  that  he  might 
become  "a  curse  from  the  gods  "  {Qewv  juDji'ifxa)  to  Odysseus, 
if  he  were  left  unburied,  is  very  far  from  the  passionate  sense 
of  need  which  is  marked  in  Palinurus.  Virgil  is  here  in 
close  touch  with  popular  sentiment,  and  though  we  may 
reconcile  it  somehow  with  the  rest  of  his  picture,  we  feel 
that  philosophy  has  here  waived  its  rights  to  poetry — and 

^  See  the  curious  note  of  Servius  ad  Aen.  vi.  340,  who  explains  the  dim- 
ness on  the  ground  that  Palinurus  had  not  reached  the  loca  purgationis ; 
the  wiser,  he  says,  say  of  souls  in  the  world  beyond,  \\\2X  purgatac  incipiunt  esse 
elariores. 

*  Od.  xi.  51-80,     See  Miss  F.  Melian  Stawell,  Homer  and  the  Iliad,  p.  157. 

*  Ep.  4.     Cf.  Horace,  Odes,  i.  28,  on  the  unburied  Archytas. 


262  VIRGIL 

perhaps  to   patriotism,  for   Cape    Palinurus  is   our  parting 
thought. 

Aeternumque  locus  Palinuri  nomen  habebit  ^  (vi.  381). 

Italy  haunts  the  poet's  mind  even  in  Hades, 

Once  across  Acheron  Aeneas  passes  through  five  regions 
of  Hades,  about  which  there  has  been  a  great  deal  of 
controversy.^  They  are  occupied  respectively  by  children 
who  died  in  infancy,  by  those  unjustly  condemned  to  death, 
by  innocent  people  who  have  committed  suicide,  by  un- 
happy lovers,  and  by  those  who  have  fallen  in  war.  Norden 
wishes  to  group  these  five  regions  as  one  intermediate  state, 
finding  the  common  likeness  among  these  five  rather  dif- 
ferent classes  of  people  in  the  fact  that  they  all  have  been 
cut  off  prematurely.  He  produces  a  certain  amount  of 
evidence  to  show  that  views  were  current  upon  the  acopoi 
or  l^iaioBavaTOi,  as  such  people  were  called,  to  the  effect  that 
they  had  to  reach  the  period  originally  assigned  to  their 
lives  before  they  could  be  properly  ranked  with  the  dead.^ 
In  this  he  is  not  generally  followed.  Fallen  heroes,  for 
example,  do  not  belong  to  this  class  in  any  case,  and  if  they 
did,  it  is  hard  to  see  why  some  should  be  in  Elysium  already 
(649)  and  others  not.  If  Virgil  had  meant  to  represent  all 
his  five  classes  as  j^iaioQavaToi,  he  could,  as  Norden  admits, 
have  explained  this  in  a  line  or  two.  He  did  not  explain 
it,  and  Norden  says  it  is  not  worth  while  to  ask  why  he  did 
not.*     It  is  simpler  and  sounder  not  to  attempt  reconcilia- 

^  "  For  ever  the  place  shall  bear  the  name  of  Palinurus." 

2  See  E.  Norden,  Vergilstudienxvi  Hermes,  \%()t,.  See  also  Weil,  ^/«a'i?j,  p.  88, 
and  Dieterich  Nekyia,  152,  n.,  for  criticisms  of  weight  and  significance  upon 
Norden's  views. 

*  e.g.  Servius  on  Aen.  iv.  386  dicunt  physici  biothanatorum  animas  non  recipi 
in  originein  suatn  nisi  vagantes  legitimu?n  tempzis  fati  conipleverint,  Plato,  Rep. 
X.  615  C,  alludes,  without  explanation,  to  the  condition  below  of  those  who  die 
at  birth. 

*  Norden's  own  words  may  be  quoted.  Hermes,  1893,  p.  388 :  "  Hatte 
Vergil  nur  mit  einem  Worte  darauf  hingedeutet,  dass  alle  diese  in  der  Zwischen- 
region  sich  aufhaltenden  Seelen,  wenn  ihre  Zeit  erfullt  sei,  aus  diesem  Aus- 
nahmezustand  erlost  warden,  so  ware  die  missverstandliche  Auffassung  dieser 
Stelle  ausgeschlossen  gewesen.  Warum  er  es  nicht  gethan  hat,  ist  uberfliissig  zu 
fragen  :  dass  er  keineswegs  die  Kenntniss  dieser  abstrusen  Lehre  bei  seinen 
Lesern  voraussetztn  durfte,  wird  dadurch  bewiesen,  dass  in  den  ausserordentlich 


HADES  263 

tions  which  the  poet  has  not  troubled  to  make.  Norden's 
thesis  is  that  the  book  is  a  finished  and  consistent  whole, 
and  to  support  this  he  feels  that  discrepancies  must  be 
reconciled.  But  the  almost  casual  allusion  to  Minos  (431-3) 
suggests  incomplete  revision  ;  or,  if  it  does  not  mean  this, 
it  is  surely  significant  that  so  vital  and  important  a  figure 
is  introduced  in  connexion  with  one  small  and  insignificant 
group  of  people. 

But,  whatever  logical  consistency  we  may  introduce  into 
this  passage  by  bringing  all  five  classes  under  one  descrip- 
tion, it  is  important  to  remember  that,  even  if  Virgil  meant 
this,  there  still  remains  a  moral  inconsistency.  We  can 
understand  Plato  putting  infant  children  in  a  class  by 
themselves  {Rep.  x.  615  C);  they  at  least  have  some  claim 
to  a  limbo  of  their  own,  as  they  are  neither  moral  nor 
immoral.  The  intermediate  position  in  Hades  held  by  the 
spirits  of  adult  persons  of  no  very  distinct  moral  character, 
which  Plato  describes  in  the  Phaedo,  is  also  thoroughly 
intelligible.  But  here  some  heroes  are  in  Elysium,  others 
are  not — why  should  mere  lapse  of  time  make  such  a  dif- 
ference ?  Among  the  lovers,  too,  Pasiphae,  Phaedra,  and 
Dido  seem  widely  different  in  character.  Why  should 
Sychaeus  be  here?  It  is  clear  that  this  grouping  of  the 
lovers  by  themselves  is  an  idea  borrowed  from  the  Odyssey}- 
There  is  no  philosophy  about  it.  Take  again  the  wounds 
of  Deiphobus — his  ghostly  form  bears,  like  some  of  the 
ghosts  Odysseus  saw,^  the  wounds  his  physical  body 
received  at  his  death.  That  is,  we  think  of  Deiphobus 
for  ever  as  we  saw  him  last.  How  wide  the  interval 
between  these  wounds  and  the  scars  which  the  souls  of 
tyrants  lay  bare  to  Rhadamanthus  in  the  Gorgiasl  In 
fact,  Virgil  has  sacrificed  "  consistency "  to  his  endeavour 
to  use  every  thought,  popular  or  philosophical,  of  the  other 

zahlreichen  Nekyien  der  nachvergilischen  Dichter  trotz  ihrer  offenbaren,  zum 
Theil  sehr  slarken  Nachahmung  des  6.  Buches  der  Aeneis  keine  Spur  deiser 
Scheidiing  mehr  vorhanden  ist." 

1  The  Elysium  of  good  lovers  is  described  by  Tibullus  (I.  iii.  57  f.),  and 
contrasted  with  a  Tartarus,  which  has  a  Tisiphone  and  the  three  great  classic 
sinners,  &c.     In  fact,  it  is  a  literary  tradition — and  a  charming  one, 

*  Od.  xi.  40. 


264  VIRGIL 

world  which  could  lend  itself  to  poetic  treatment  and  had 
beauty  within  it. 

One  point  should  be  noticed,  however,  before  we  pass  on. 
We  have  seen  that  those  who  killed  themselves  had  been 
innocent,  and  that  their  unhappy  position  below  is  the 
result  of  their  casting  away  their  lives  {proiecere  animas). 
This  condemnation  of  suicide  was  Pythagorean,  and  was 
afterwards  a  prominent  feature  in  Neo-Platonism.  One 
must  not,  said  the  Neo-Platonists,  leave  life  so  long  as  there 
is  possibility  of  self-development.^  "  How  gladly  would 
they  choose  now,"  says  Virgil,  "  in  the  air  above  to  bear  to 
the  end  poverty  and  hard  toil "  (438).  Once  more  the  ten- 
dency of  his  Hades  is  all  against  surrender,  all  for  the 
earnest  and  strenuous  life. 

Inde  datum  molitur  iter  ^ 

is  said  of  Aeneas  at  the  end  of  this  passage  (477),  and  his  is 
pre-eminently  a  life  in  earnest. 

Aeneas  now  reaches  the  parting  of  the  ways.^  On  his 
left  is  Tartarus,  which  he  does  not  visit,  but  which  the 
Sibyl  describes  to  him.  In  its  awful  abysses  (the  depth  is 
twice  that  of  Homer's  old  phrase)  *  there  are  of  course  the 
classical  sinners  of  antiquity — Titans,  Tityos,  Ixion — but 
there  are  others  of  a  more  everyday  order,  sinners  who  have 
never  indeed  tried  to  overthrow  Jove  from  his  throne  in 
heaven,  but  who  in  their  own  way  have  struck  at  those 
laws  on  which  human  society  rests,  who  have  betrayed  their 
country  for  gold,  who  have  sold  justice,  who  have  cheated 
their  clients,  committed  adultery,  and  hated  their  brothers. 
The  poet's  language  approaches,  as  near  as  it  may,  the 
phrase  of  the  Twelve  Tables,^  that  code  which,  down  to 
Cicero's  day  at  least,  every  schoolboy  learnt  by  heart,^  and 

'  Plotinus,  Enn.  i.  9  ;  Porphyry,  vita  Plotini,  1 1  ;  Macrobius,  Coinm.  Sotnn. 
Scip.  i.  13.  15-16. 

*  "  Thence  he  presses  on  the  path  given." 
3  Plato,  Gorgias,  524  A  ;  Rep.  614  C. 

*  //.  8.  16  Tbcraov  IvepO'  'Ai'Sew  ocrov  ovpavos  ear'  dirb  yairjs. 
^  Norden,  op,  cit.,  p.  390  ;  and  Servius  on  A.  vi.  609. 

*  Cicero,  de  Legibus,  ii.  23,  59  nostis  quae  sequtintur.     Discebamus  enim pueri 
xii,  ut  carmen  necessarmm,  quas  tain  nemo  discit. 


HADES  265 

the  very  words  of  which  must  have  risen  to  the  minds  of 
many  of  his  readers.  Once  more  Virgil  has  linked  ancient 
and  modern  thought.  His  Tartarus  may  be  an  Orphic  Tar- 
tarus, it  may  have  elements  from  Homer  and  Hesiod,  but  the 
quiet  power  with  which  the  poet  subjects  it  all  to  the  simple 
old  code,  to  the  fundamental  laws  of  home  and  state,  takes 
it  out  of  the  region  of  folklore  and  brings  it  home  to  men 
with  a  new  force  and  a  new  seriousness.  Plato  had  already 
established  moral  law  beyond  the  grave,  as  we  have  seen,  and 
had  consigned  most  "  dynasts  "  to  Tartarus,  but  it  was  a  new 
thing  when  Virgil  so  triumphantly  asserted  the  divine  right 
of  the  state.  As  Tartarus  seems  to  have  lain  outside  the 
circle  of  re-birth,  the  Sibyl  could  not  well  give  instances  of 
Roman  sinners  there,  but  the  gap  is  made  good  on  the  shield 
of  Aeneas,  where  Vulcan  set  in  his  picture  of  Tartarus 
no  Tityos  or  Ixion,  but  Catiline,^  while  on  the  throne 
of  Minos  he  set  Cato.^  A  long  period  of  individualism, 
and  a  much  longer  one  of  identification  of  duty  to  the  state 
with  duty  to  the  privileged,  have  made  it  hard  for  us  to-day 
to  grasp  Virgil's  thought,  but  signs  are  not  wanting  that  in 
our  own  re-mapping  of  Tartarus  and  Elysium,  wherever  we 
may  place  them,  the  claims  of  the  state  and  of  its  ideals  will 
not  go  unconsidered.  Here  at  least  we  can  hail  Maro  vates 
gentilium.     But  for  the  present  we  must  return  to  Aeneas. 

The  Sibyl  has  now  brought  Aeneas  to  Elysium,  "  the  glad 
region,  the  fair  bowers  of  the  glades  of  happiness,  the  home 
of  the  blest."  ^  Here  is  the  larger  air,  the  bright  light,  of 
those  old  islands  of  the  blest  where  the  sons-in-law  of  the 
gods  went  in  Homer's  days;  but  another  teacher  has  told 
mankind  more  about  it  all,  and  his  is  the  first  figure  we 
recognize.  "  The  Thracian  priest  in  the  long  robe "  is 
Orpheus,  not  the  sad  lover  of  the  Georgics,  but  the  teacher 
and  purifier  of  mankind,  clad  as  he  is  drawn  in  Orphic 
pictures.  With  him  is  Musaeus.  Here  (as  in  Pindar's 
Dirge)  are  the  heroes  of  ancient  days,  still  happy  as  of  old 

*  Plutarch,  later  on,  does  the  same  with  Nero  ;  de  sera  numinum  vindicia 
567  F.  *  viii.  666-670. 

^  A.  vi.  638.  These  amoena  virecta  are  horTOWcd  by  Prudentius  for  the  garden 
of  Kden,  Cathetnerinon,  iii.  loi. 


266  VIRGIL 

in  song  and  dance  and  chariot.  If  one  did  not  know  how 
hard  others  have  found  it  to  give  any  picture  of  a  Christian 
heaven,  one  might  confess  to  a  certain  reminiscence  of 
Alcinous  and  his  Phaeacians  here — 

aiei.  <5'  ^/miv  Sal?  re  ^iXt]  KiOaptg  re  X^pof'  T€.^ 

But  we  shall  do  better  to  notice  who  the  company  are. 
They  are  men  who  have  bled  for  their  country,  holy  priests, 
true  poets,  men  who  have  enriched  human  life  with  the  arts 
they  have  discovered,  men  who  have  made  themselves  names 
by  doing  service.  Mark  here  again  how  Virgil  borrows  but 
remains  independent.  The  whole  atmosphere  is  Orphic,  but 
that  popular  Orphism,  which  Plato  denounced,  is  not  here. 
No  mention  is  made  of  mysteries  or  initiation,  hardly  any 
of  the  gods.  As  Hector  in  the  Iliad  dismissed  divination, 
so  Virgil  dismisses  initiation — 

eT?  oioovo?  apicTTOg,  a/xvveadai  irepi  irar pr}<i.^ 

He  looks  at  the  state  and  at  mankind  in  assessing  the  worth 
of  a  man's  life.  In  his  five  doubtful  regions  we  sav/  him  fail 
a  little  in  using  canons  of  justice  and  righteousness,  and  here 
again,  while  we  recognize  the  grandeur  and  worth  of  his 
teaching,  we  feel  that  Plato  is  on  a  higher  level  v/hen  he 
makes  the  final  judgement  turn  on  what  a  man  is,  rather  than 
on  what  he  has  done.  But,  as  we  have  seen,  it  was  not  the 
Roman's  way  to 

Make  his  moral  being  his  prime  care. 

At  last  Aeneas  is  face  to  face  with  his  father's  shade  ;  the 
avowed  object  of  his  descent  into  Hades  is  attained.  In  the 
dream  in  Sicily  Anchises  had  bidden  him  come — "then 
shalt  thou  learn  of  all  thy  race  and  of  the  city  to  be  given 
thee"  (v.  737).  So  now,  after  a  vain  attempt  at  an  embrace 
(like  that  of  Odysseus  in  the  Odyssey)^  Aeneas  sees  in  a 
secluded  valley  of  woods,  by  the  side    of  a   quiet   stream, 

*   Od.  viii.  248.     "  Ever  to  us  is  the  banquet  dear,  the  lyre  and  the  dance." 
2  Iliad  xii.  243.     Polydamas  wishes  to  draw  an  omen  from  a  bird  ;  Hector 
rejoins  :  "  The  one  best  bird  (omen) — is  to  fight  for  our  country." 


HADES  267 

innumerable  souls,  many  as  the  bees  in  summer.^  Who  are 
they,  he  asks,  and  what  is  the  river  ?  It  is  Lethe,  the  river 
of  forgetfulness,  the  waters  of  which  are  drunk  by  souls 
destined  again  to  enter  the  body.^  Here  we  touch  once 
more  the  teaching  of  the  Orphics  and  Plato.  Souls  which 
are  to  be  free  from  the  wheel  of  Birth  drink  of  the  spring 
of  Memory,  according  to  the  Orphics  ;  and  Plato  tells 
how  souls  returning  to  earthly  life  cross  the  plain  of 
Forgetfulness,  and,  reaching  the  river  of  Negligence  (or 
Forgetfulness,  as  he  calls  it  later  on),  they  are  "  all  obliged 
to  drink  a  certain  quantity,  and  those  who  are  not  saved 
by  wisdom  drink  more  than  is  necessary  and  forget  all 
things."  ^  Virgil  avails  himself  of  this  Pythagorean  and 
Orphic  teaching  to  enable  Aeneas  to  see  the  souls  of  the 
great  Romans  of  the  future.  These  great  men  we  may 
pass  by,  and  consider  instead  the  philosophy  of  life  which 
Anchises  unfolds  to  his  son. 

Know  first,  the  heaven,  the  earth,  the  main, 
The  moon's  pale  orb,  the  starry  train, 

Are  nourished  by  a  soul, 
A  spirit  whose  celestial  flame 
Glows  in  each  member  of  the  frame 

And  stirs  the  mighty  whole.^ 
Thence  souls  of  men  and  cattle  spring, 
And  the  gay  people  of  the  wing, 
And  those  strange  shapes  that  ocean  hides 
Beneath  the  smoothness  of  his  tides. 
A  fiery  strength  inspires  their  lives, 
An  essence  that  from  heaven  derives,^ 

^  The  simile  goes  back  surely  to  early  days  at  Andes  or  Mantua,  cf. 
p.  14,  n.  2. 

*  A.  vi.  713  animae  quibus  altera  fat 0  corpora  debentur.  The  comment  of 
Servius  on  this  passage  is  most  interesting,  with  its  Neo-Platonic  tinge. 

'  Rep.  X.  621  A;  Dieterich,  Nekyia,  p.  90;  Miss  Harrison,  Prolegomena, 
cited  already. 

*  Cf.  E.  Caird,  Greek  Philosophy  ii.  87-89;  and  the  "Something  far  more 
deeply  interfused  "  of  Wordsworth's  Tintern  Abbey. 

5  Igneus  est  ollis  vigor  et  caelestis  origo  (730).  Cf.  the  rrveO/aa  oidirvpov  of  the 
Stoics  and  their  divinae  partictila  aurae,  Hor.  Sat.  ii.  2.  79,  with  Epictetus  D. 
ii.  8  ai)  aTr6<riraafj.a  el  tou  deov. 


268  VIRGIL 

Though  clogged  in  part  by  limbs  of  clay 

And  the  dull  "vesture  of  decay." 

Hence  wild  desires  and  grovelling  fears, 

And  human  laughter,  human  tears  :  ^ 

Immured  in  dungeon-seeming  night, 

They  look  abroad,  yet  see  no  light. 

Nay,  when  at  last  the  life  has  fled, 

And  left  the  body  cold  and  dead, 

E'en  then  there  passes  not  away 

The  painful  heritage  of  clay  ; 

Full  many  a  long-contracted  stain 

Perforce  must  linger  deep  in  grain. 

So  penal  sufferings  they  endure 

For  ancient  crime,  to  make  them  pure  : 

Some  hang  aloft  in  open  view 

For  winds  to  pierce  them  through  and  through  ^ 

While  others  purge  their  guilt  deep-dyed 

In  burning  fire  or  whelming  tide. 
743    Each  for  himself,  we  all  sustain 

The  durance  of  our  ghostly  pain  ; 

Then  to  Elysium  we  repair, 

The  few,  and  breathe  this  blissful  air : 
745    Till,  many  a  length  of  ages  past. 

The  inherent  taint  is  cleansed  at  last, 

And  nought  remains  but  ether  bright, 

The  quintessence  of  heavenly  light. 
748    All  these,  when  centuries  ten  times  told 

The  wheel  of  destiny  have  rolled, 

The  voice  divine  from  far  and  wide 

Calls  up  to  Lethe's  river-side. 

That  earthward  they  may  pass  once  more 

Remembering  not  the  things  before, 

And  with  a  blind  propension  yearn 
751    To  fleshly  bodies  to  return.^ 

The  terminology  of  this  passage  is  Stoic  ;  the  matter  shows 
indebtedness  to  Plato  and  the  Neo-Pythagoreans,     As  in  the 

'  Virgil  is  nearer  the  philosophers  here,  doleiit  gaudentqne. 

*  Cf.  the  account  given  by  Pythagoras  of  Homer's  soul  in  Hades. 

^  A.  vi.  724-51  (Conington). 


HADES  269 

famous  passage  in  the  Georgics  (iv.  219-27),  Virgil  leans  to 
the  belief  that  all  nature  is  alive  with  one  divine  life,  per- 
meating through  race  and  individual.  This  life  has  a  fiery 
origin  and  nature,  which  continues  in  the  creature  of  flesh, 
except  in  so  far  as  the  body  dulls  and  blunts  its  faculties  by 
hope  and  fear,  pain  and  pleasure,  blinding  it  with  the  dark- 
ness of  the  prison-house — crwyua,  as  we  saw,  being  identical 
with  (jriixa.  The  influence  of  the  body  survives  death,  and, 
as  Plato  taught  us,  the  soul  appears  before  its  judge  (though 
he  is  not  mentioned  in  this  passage)  bearing  all  its  scars 
and  wounds  and  sickness.  These  have  to  be  treated,  as 
Plato  and  the  Orphics  said,  till  they  are  healed,  and  the 
treatment  is  punishment.  And  now  we  have  reached  the 
difficult  part  of  the  passage. 

"  We  suffer,  each  a  several  ghost,"  ^  says  Virgil,  "and  then 
we  are  sent  through  broad  Elysium  and  a  few  of  us  abide 
itcnemiis)  in  the  happy  fields."  So  far  Plato  and  the  others 
go  with  him,  but  our  text  continues  amazingly — "  until  long 
days,  a  full  orb  of  time,  have  taken  away  the  ingrown  stain 
and  left  untainted  the  aetherial  sense  and  the  pure  spiritual 
flame  {aurai  siniplicis  ignetn).  All  these,  when  the  wheel 
has  revolved  for  them  a  thousand  years,  the  god  calls  in  vast 
array  to  Lethe's  stream,  that  in  forgetfulness  they  may  see 
once  more  the  dome  of  sky  above,  and  begin  again  to  wish 
to  return  to  the  body."  The  confusion  is  obvious.  Do  the 
elect  who  hold  the  happy  fields  go  through  purification  and 
then  drink  of  Lethe?  are  all  involved  in  the  "wheel"?  Are 
there  two  purgations — one  before  Elysium  is  reached,  one 
within  it? 

The  general  teaching  of  the  school  which  Virgil  is  here 
following  is  clear,  and  various  attempts  have  been  made  to 
reconcile  his  text  with  his  teachers.  Should  we  transpose 
11.  743,  744  with  11.  745-7  ?  "  This  and  that  soul  are  purged 
with  wind,  water,  and  fire,  till  long  time  has  taken  away  the 
stain    and   left  the   fiery  nature  pure.     Each  suffers  in  his 

1  Quisque  suos  patimur  manes  {A.  vi.  743).  This  famous  phrase  Servius 
explains  by  reference  to  the  doctrine  ol'CnG. genius.  Nam  cum  nasciiniir,  duosgentos 
sortimur :  umis  qui  hortatur  ad  bona,  alter  qui  depravat  ad  tnala.  The  doctrine- 
is  important  in  the  history  of  religion,  but  its  introduction  illustrates  the  com- 
mentator rather  than  the  poet. 


270  VIRGIL 

spirit;  a  few  hold  (for  ever)  the  happy  fields.  All  these 
(with  a  wave  of  the  hand  to  the  souls  on  Lethe's  brink),  as 
distinguished  from  the  few,  drink  of  Lethe  and  are  reborn." 
To  this  it  is  objected  the  Anchises  has  not  had  to  wait 
"a  full  orb  of  time."  His  purgation  has  been  at  the  very- 
longest  a  year.  It  may  be  replied  that  our  Orphic  gold 
tablets  suppose  the  buried  Orphic  to  become  a  god  at  once ; 
and  also — a  sounder  argument — that  Virgil  is  inconsistent 
and  does  not  mind  being  inconsistent.  The  second  remedy 
is  to  put  11.  745-7  last  of  all,  i.e.  "  these,  the  ordinary  run  of 
men,  continue  to  be  born  over  and  over  again,  they  drink 
Lethe,  revisit  the  light,  till  after  a  full  orb  of  time  the 
ingrown  taint  is  at  last  removed."  This,  like  the  other 
transposition,  gives  us  good  Orphism,  but  in  neither  case  is 
it  explained  how  the  order  of  the  passage  came  to  be  upset. 
The  third  remedy  is  that  of  Dieterich.  He  puts  a  pause 
in  the  speech  at  the  mention  of  the  few  who  reach  and  keep 
Elysium  (1.  744).  Then  Anchises  begins  (a  little  rhetoric- 
ally) by  an  immense  inversion — "  Until  long  time  has  purged 
them,  &c.,  these  (with  great  emphasis  and  a  most  marked 
wave  of  the  spectral  hand)  the  god  keeps  calling  to  Lethe 
and  sending  to  fresh  bodies."  It  is  hard  to  credit  the  shade 
of  Anchises  with  so  much  rhetoric.  Fourthly,  Norden  cuts 
the  knot  by  saying  that  we  have  here  two  recensions,  quite 
distinct,  but  both  by  Virgil,  one  of  which  the  poet  meant  to 
reject ;  and  that  Varius,  finding  both  in  the  manuscript,  and, 
not  clear  which  to  choose  himself,  left  every  reader  the 
same  freedom  and  perplexity.^  If  Varius  did  this,  it  may 
be  permissible  for  us  to  come  to  no  decision. 

We  have  now  seen  Virgil's  Hades,  and  we  have  dealt,  in  a 
summary  way  enough,  with  its  relations  to  the  various 
descriptions  which  the  poet  knew  of  the  abode  and  the  life 
of  the  dead.  What  does  it  all  mean }  We  shall  probably 
not  try  to  make  one  consistent  scheme  of  elements  taken 
from  sources  so  wide  apart  in  time  and  thought.  The 
traditional    and    the    philosophical,   the    new   and    the   old, 

^  See,  on  the  whole  passage,  Dieterich,  Nekyia,  pp.  154-60  (full  of  interest) ; 
Norden,  Vergihhidien  {Hermes,  1893),  PP-  395-402 ;  Ettig,  Acheruntica 
(Leipziger  Studien,  1891),  pp.  349  ff.  ;  Rohde,  Psyche^,  ii.  165  Anm. 


HADES  271 

have  all  their  charm  and  their  suggestion  for  us,  but  if 
we  attempt  to  apply  a  rigid  logic  to  them,  we  shall  lose  much 
and  gain  very  little.  But  we  have  none  the  less  to  ask  our 
poet  what  truth  he  is  embodying  for  us  here ;  what  truth  he 
had  consciously  in  mind  when  he  wrote.  Had  he,  apart 
from  inconsistencies  superficial  or  fundamental,  any  clear 
idea  to  convey ;  or  does  he  mean  by  the  ivory  gate,  through 
which  Aeneas  leaves  Hades,  a  hint  to  us  that  the  best  in 
this  kind  are  but  shadows,  that  we  have  been  dreaming 
dreams  with  no  interpretation  ?  ^  Let  us  go  back  to  Plato 
for  a  moment. 

"  I  do  not  mean  to  affirm  that  the  description  which 
I  have  given  of  the  soul  and  her  mansions  is  exactly  true — 
a  man  of  sense  ought  hardly  to  say  that.  But  I  do  say  that, 
inasmuch  as  the  soul  is  shown  to  be  immortal,  he  may 
venture  to  think,  not  improperly  or  unworthily,  that 
something  of  the  kind  is  true.  The  venture  is  a  glorious 
one,  and  he  ought  to  comfort  himself  with  words  like  these, 
which  is  the  reason  why  I  lengthen  out  my  tale.  Where- 
fore, I  say,  let  a  man  be  of  good  cheer  about  his  soul,  who 
has  cast  away  the  pleasures  and  ornaments  of  the  body 
as  alien  to  him,  and  rather  hurtful  in  their  effects,  and  has 
followed  after  the  pleasures  of  knowledge  in  this  life;  who 
has  adorned  the  soul  in  her  own  proper  jewels,  which 
are  temperance,  and  justice,  and  courage,  and  nobility,  and 
truth — in  these  arrayed  she  is  ready  to  go  on  her  journey  to 
the  world  below,  when  her  time  comes."  ^ 

Is  this  Virgil's  meaning?  Would  he  go  so  far ?  Possibly 
not  quite  so  far.  He  would  tell  us  perhaps :  "  This  and 
that  is  what  men  have  said  about  the  other  life.  Epicurus 
and  Lucretius  utterly  denied  it  all,  but,  as  Cephalus  said,^ 
it  comes  back  upon  one,  and  one  does  not  altogether 
know  what  to  think.  Yet  one  or  two  things  seem  probable 
— if  there  is  another  life,  it  must  be  like  this  life  in 
the  main  ;  it  must  be  bound  up  with  love  and  under 
the    sway   of    moral    law.     One    thing    is    certain — that   of 

*  Et  poelice  apertus  est  sensus :  vult  autem  intellegi  falsa  esse  omnia  quae  dixit, 
SJiys  Servius. 

•  Phaedo,  1 14,  Jowett's  translation.  *  Plato's  Republic  i.  330,  D. 


272  VIRGIL 

all  that  men  do,  service  of  the  state  or  humanity  is  the  best 
worth  doing.  If  there  are  rewards  for  anything,  they  must 
be  for  this — Cicero,  you  will  remember,  says  the  same  in  his 
myth.  As  to  your  personal  immortality  or  mine  being 
assured,  we  shall  know  better  by  and  by — and,  after  all, 
what  does  it  matter,  if  he  is  not  to  see  his  Tullia,  and  I —  ? 
Did  you  notice  what  Anchises  said  ? 

Venisti  tandem,  tuaque  expectata  parent! 
vicit  iter  durum  pietas  ?  ^ 

Meanwhile  there  is  our  earth  here." 

^  "  Art  thou  come  at  last  ;  and  has  that  love  thy  father  looked  to  conquered 
the  hardness  of  the  way?"     {A.  vi.  687). 


CHAPTER  XI 
INTERPRETATION  OF  LIFE.— 4.  OLYMPUS 

The  souls  of  now  two  thousand  years 
Have  laid  up  here  their  toils  and  fears, 
And  all  the  earnings  of  their  pain, — 
Ah  !  yet  consider  it  again. 

We  !  what  do  we  see  ?  each  a  space 

Of  some  few  yards  before  his  face  ; 

Does  that  the  whole  wide  plan  explain  ? 

Ah  !  yet  consider  it  again  ! —  Clough. 

LUCAN'S  Pharsalia,  as  Voltaire  remarked,  is  dis- 
tinguished from  all  other  ancient  epics  by  the  bold 
omission  of  the  whole  mythological  apparatus,  which 
tradition,  resting  upon  Homer,  had  exacted  of  the  poets.^ 
Lucan  was  a  young  man,  and  he  had  that  intolerance  of  old 
ways  and  old  ideas  which  is  often,  though  not  always,  a 
sign  of  promise.     Antiquity — 

famosa  vetustas 
miratrixque  sui  ^ — 

had  for  centuries  encumbered  its  poetry  with  gods  in  whom 
men  had  ceased  to  believe,  and  it  is  one  of  the  merits  of  the 
Pharsalia  that  its  author  resolved  to  be  independent  of 
artifice  so  outworn  and  so  insincere,  and  to  give  to  his 
readers  a  poem  resting  on  the  actual  and  the  real.  If  he 
was  not  successful,  if  his  poem  fails  of  poetic  truth,  he  was 
at  least  so  far  honest. 

The  noble  lines  spoken  by  Cato,  though  marked  by 
Lucan's  inevitable  haste  and  rhetoric,  still  take  us  nearer  to 
the  truth  of  things  than  any  epic  machinery — 

Haeremus  cuncti  superis,  temploque  tacente 
nil  facimus  non  sponte  dei  .  .  . 

'  Voltaire,  Essai  sur  la  poilsie,  ipique,  ch.  iv.  (vol.  x.  p.  437). 
*  Pkars.  iv.  654,  "antiquity  with  its  tales  and  its  admiration  of  itself." 
18  273 


274  VIRGIL 

estque  dei  sedes  nisi  terra  et  pontus  et  aer 

et  caelum  et  virtus  ?  superos  quid  quaerimus  ultra  ? 

luppiter  est,  quodcunque  vides,  quodcunque  moveris.^ 

The  poet  is  in  touch  with  the  same  thought  which  Virgil 
expresses  in  the  Georgics — 

esse  apibus  partem  divinae  mentis  et  haustus 
aetherios  dixere  :  deum  namque  ire  per  omnes 
terrasque  tractusque  maris  caelumque  profundum  ^ 

{G.  iv.  220). 

Yet  a  critic  of  Lucan's  day,  a  man  not  without  discern- 
ment or  literary  skill,  was  moved  to  write  two  or  three 
hundred  lines  of  a  Pharsalia  of  his  own,  to  show  how  it 
ought  to  be  done.  The  main  defect  of  Lucan  would  appear 
to  be  that  he  had  left  out  the  gods.^  That  Statins  had  the 
gods  in  his  Thebaid  was  natural  enough  ;  it  was  the  right 
place  for  them.  But  Silius  Italicus  could  not  let  Hannibal 
fight  at  Cannae  without  the  co-operation  of  Juno  and  Aeolus 
and  Anna  Perenna,  Three  hundred  years  later  Claudian  could 
find  no  better  explanation  of  the  power  of  a  prime  minister, 
whom  he  disliked,  than  the  direct  intervention  of  the 
fury  Megaera  on  the  motion  of  a  conference  of  infernal 
authorities^ — a  view  which  may  appeal  to  us  as  politicians 
more  than  it  will  to  serious  lovers  of  poetry. 

Every  one  of  these  writers  would  probably  shield  himself 
with  the  great  name  of  Virgil — and  Virgil  was,  or  had  been, 
an  Epicurean.  It  is  a  question  which  the  student  of  Virgil 
has  to  face — How  comes  an  Epicurean  poet  to  introduce 
so  much  of  Olympus  into  his  last  and  crowning  work, 
and  what  does  he  mean  by  it?     It  is,  of  course,  easy  to  say 

^  Phars.  ix.  573-80.  "  We  are  all  of  us  bound  up  with  the  gods,  and  though 
the  shrine  be  silent,  there  is  nothing  we  do  without  God's  will.  .  .  .  Nay  !  is 
there  an  abode  of  God,  save  earth  and  sea  and  air  and  sky  and  virtue?  Why 
seek  we  gods  outside  ?    Jupiter  is  all  you  see  and  all  that  lives  within  you  !  " 

*  "  Some  have  said  that  bees  have  received  a  share  of  the  divine  intelligence, 
a  draught  from  aether  ;  God,  they  tell  us,  pervades  all,  earth  and  the  expanse  of 
sea,  and  the  deep  vault  of  heaven." 

*  Petronius  puts  the  poem  into  the  mouth  of  Eumolpus.  Boissier, 
L' Opposition,  ch.  v.  p.  244,  holds  that  Eumolpus  expresses  his  creator's  view  ; 
E.  Thomas,  in  his  P^trone,  without  going  so  far  as  to  deny  this,  questions  it. 

*  See  the  opening  of  In  Rufinum. 


OLYMPUS  2;5 

that  he  is  following  Homer,  but  a  little  study  of  the  Aeneid 
reveals  the  influence  of  other  leaders.  For  example, 
Euripides  is  an  author  whom  Virgil  studied  closely ; 
Plato  and  Pythagoras,  the  Stoics  and  Epicurus,  have  con- 
tributed to  the  growth  of  his  mind,  directly  or  indirectly. 
If  we  admit  that  literary  convention  required  the  intro- 
duction of  the  Homeric  gods,  are  the  gods  of  the  Aeneid 
Homeric  ?  How  do  they  accommodate  themselves  in  the 
poet's  mind  to  the  company  of  the  philosophers  ?  When 
we  have  analysed  the  various  elements  from  various  sources 
which  are  combined  in  Virgil's  pantheon,  we  have  still 
to  explain  Virgil's  attitude  towards  the  divine.  The  study 
is  not  merely  a  literary  one,  but  it  is  a  chapter  in  the 
history  of  religion,  and  an  important  one,  for  in  Virgil  we 
have  a  forerunner  of  the  great  religious  revival  of  the 
Roman  Empire. 

I 

Whatever  unity  there  may  be  in  a  man's  conceptions 
of  God  and  of  the  universe,  it  is  almost  impossible  that  there 
should  not  be  among  them  survivals  from  systems  which  he 
has  inherited  and  outgrown.  Just  as  the  "life-history"  of 
the  individual  man  is  a  sort  of  epitome  of  the  history  of 
the  race,  the  analysis  of  his  opinions  will  tend  to  show 
in  measure  a  similar  history  of  the  thinking  of  mankind, 
and  if  he  will  take  the  trouble  to  trace  the  origins  and 
affinities  of  his  ideas,  he  may  very  well  find  points  where 
he  is  in  contact  with  almost  every  stage  of  religious 
thought.  A  great  part  of  the  religious  life  is  the  habit 
of  constantly  re-thinking  the  old  in  the  terms  of  the  new 
— it,  is  a  long  and  confusing  process  for  the  individual 
and  for  the  race,  but  any  one  who  is  pursuing  it  and  who 
will  study  the  record  of  his  own  mind  will  bring  a  new 
insight  and  sympathy  to  the  study  of  the  thinkers  of  the 
past. 

When,    in    this   temper,   we   try  to    understand    the   pre- 
sentment of  the  divine  which  we  find   in  Homer,^  we    are 

^  For  the  moment  it  is  not  very  material   whether  "Homer "is  one  man  or 
several. 


276  VIRGIL 

impressed  first  by  the  confusion  of  the  ideas,i  and  then  by  the 
fact  that  there  is  an  order  in  this  confusion.  For  as  soon  as 
we  realize  that  we  are  looking  at  things  in  perspective, 
and  are  following  the  processes  of  thought  still  moving 
onward,  it  becomes  easier  to  grasp  the  relations  of  the 
parts  of  the  picture  left  upon  our  minds. 

Far  away  upon  the  horizon  we  see  dimly  the  awful  and 
disgusting  figures  of  the  old  gods,  dethroned  by  Zeus, 
and  the  monsters,  children  of  earth,  Titans,  and  so  forth, 
of  whose  struggles  with  Zeus  and  his  dynasty  broken 
fragments  of  narrative  tell  us  a  little,  but  enough.^  In 
Hesiod  these  ancient  powers  are  still  in  the  foreground, 
and  they  re-emerge  from  time  to  time  in  various  forms  in  the 
history  of  Greek  religion.  They,  and  not  the  true  household 
of  Homer's  Zeus,  lie  behind  the  mysteries  which  Clement  of 
Alexandria  attacked.  They  emerge  again  for  the  last  time 
in  the  epic  of  Nonnus,  monstrous  as  themselves,  though  here 
Neo-Platonism  is  doing  its  best  to  keep  them  rational  and 
clean.  In  fact,  we  might  almost  say  that  in  religious  thought 
action  and  re-action  are  equal  as  well  as  opposite,  for  wherever 
a  great  step  in  advance  has  to  be  taken,  those  who  refuse  it 
seem  to  take  as  great  a  step,  but  backwards. 

However,  in  Homer,  these  gods,  whom  we  may  call  (though 
he  does  not)  rude  embodiments  of  forces  of  Nature,  observed 
but  not  yet  brought  into  subjection  to  law,  are  already 
towards  or  upon  the  horizon,  and  the  divine  beings  in  the 
foreground  are  made  in  the  likeness  of  man.  How  great  an 
achievement  this  was  is  hinted  in  the  legends  of  the  wars 
of  Zeus.  It  was  a  triumph,  hard-won,  but  a  triumph 
indeed.  "  The  soul,"  says  M.  Girard,  "  a  prey  to  darkness 
and  uncertainty,  oppressed  and  timorous,  the  slave  of  matter 
and  external  nature,  had  re-acted  against  the  forces  that 
crushed  it,  and  set  to  work  to  conceive  them  in  accord  with 
laws  which  its  instinct  divined.  Its  first  act  was  to  clothe 
them  in  human  form.     In  whatever  century  it  happened,  it 

1  It  is  one  of  the  dangers  of  the  anthropologist  to  project  his  own  confusion 
upon  the  primitive  man,  who  sees  only  one  order  of  ideas,  while  the  inquirer 
is  conscious  of  several.  Homer,  however,  is  very  little  more  "primitive"  than 
Shakespeare. 

*  See  Gomperz,  Greek  Thinkers,  pp.  28-30  ;  also  pp.  38,  39  for  Hesiod. 


OLYMPUS  277 

was  the  awakening  of  the  Greek  spirit,  the  barriers  were 
removed  from  the  activity  of  the  intelligence.  It  was  the 
outcome  of  an  effort,  great  in  itself,  greater  still  in  its 
consequences."  ^ 

The  process  had  been  begun,  which  philosophy  was  to 
continue — intelligence  rather  than  brute  strength  becomes 
the  characteristic  of  a  god.  Passion  may  influence  the 
divine  being,  but  it  is  human  passion  and  intelligent,  it  is  no 
longer  blind  fury.  Poseidon  hates  Odysseus,  but  for  clear 
reasons  which  any  rational  being  can  understand.  Poseidon 
is  in  fact  a  personality.  Yet  he  is  more.  If  the  Titans  and 
their  kind  were  forces  of  nature,  we  may  call  the  new  gods 
powers  of  nature — and  the  difference  is  great.  This  is  clear, 
for  instance,  in  Homer's  Poseidon.  "  There  came  he  and 
yoked  beneath  his  car  his  bronzen-footed  horses,  swift  to 
fly,  with  long  manes  of  gold  ;  and  he  arrayed  himself  in  gold, 
and  grasped  a  golden  well-wrought  whip,  and  stepped  upon 
the  car,  and  drove  across  the  waves ;  and  the  sea-beasts 
came  from  their  chambers  everywhere,  and  gambolled 
beneath  him,  knowing  well  their  king  ;  and  the  rejoicing 
sea  parted  before  him  ;  swiftly  the  horses  flew,  and  the 
bronzen  axle  was  not  wet  beneath."  ^  Here  we  have  the 
ruler  of  the  sea,  whose  rule,  like  all  ideal  rule,  means  harmony, 
and  at  the  same  time  we  have  the  intensely  human  god. 
The  two  are  combined  in  one.  The  "  ancient  feud  of 
philosophy  and  poetry  "  ^  has  hardly  begun,  or  at  least  it  is 
not  yet  acute. 

There  is  also  progress  to  be  seen  within  the  Homeric 
poems.  In  the  Iliad  Athene  plucks  Achilles  by  the  hair  to 
check  him.  In  the  Odyssey  she  speaks  to  the  mind  of 
Odysseus,  suggesting  a  thought  rather  than  uttering  a 
command.^     To  say  that  the  conception  of  the  goddess  has 

1  Girard,  Le  Sentiment  religieiix  en  Grece,  bk.  i.  ch.  ii.  on  "the  Gods  of 
Homer  and  Hesiod,"  p.  42.  I  have  omitted  phrases  and  sentences  in  the  passage 
quoted.     Sec  also  Professor  John  Watson,  Christianity  and  Idealism,  ch.  ii. 

*  Iliad,  xiii.  23-30,  Purves. 

•*  Plato,  Jiep.  X.  p.  607  B  TraXaia  /x^i/  tu  Sia^opd  <pi\oo-0(piq.  re  Kal  -n-onjTiKjj, 

*  Cf.  also  Iliad,  xv.  So,  "As  when  the  mind  of  a  man  runs  up  and  down,  a 
traveller  over  much  of  earth,  and  he  thinks  in  his  deep  heart,  '  Would  I  were 
here  or  there,'  in  his  keen  desire  ;  as  swift  as  that  did  lady  Hera  fly." 


2/8  VIRGIL 

become  more  "  spiritual "  might  be  ambiguous  in  view  of 
Christian  terminology.  Yet  the  gods  are  beginning  to 
connect  themselves  with  moral  as  well  as  with  physical  law. 
Zeus  is  "  protector  of  those  rights  on  which  depend  all  the 
relations  of  men  with  one  another."  He  is  god  of  the  oath, 
of  the  family,  of  the  suppliant,  the  herald  and  the  beggar. 
There  are  signs,  dim  and  intermittent,  that  he  will  yet  be 
the  sole  and  supreme  god.^ 

In  a  famous  passage  Homer  gives  a  premonition  of  this 
future  faith,  though  in  a  strangely  anthropomorphic  garb. 
"Make  trial,"  says  Zeus,  "if  ye  will,  that  all  may  know;  let 
down  a  golden  chain  from  heaven  to  earth,  and  all  ye  gods 
and  goddesses  take  hold  ;  but  ye  will  not  draw  down  Zeus, 
the  most  high  counsellor,  from  heaven  to  the  ground, 
no,  not  with  much  endeavour.  But  were  I  to  draw,  and  put 
to  my  strength,  I  could  updraw  you  all  and  earth  and  sea  to 
boot,  and  bind  the  chain  about  a  horn  of  Olympus,  and 
leave  all  hanging."  '^ 

But  after  all,  it  is  neither  as  powers  of  nature  nor  as 
guardians  of  moral  law  that  the  Homeric  gods  make  their 
strongest  impression  upon  the  reader  :  it  is  rather  as  a  society 
of  very  human  persons.  One  is  tempted  at  first  to  think 
that  their  individual  characters  as  presented  in  the  poems 
are  survivals  of  an  earlier  age,  for  it  is  clear  that  human 
morality  is  far  in  advance  of  divine.  No  one  in  heaven,  in 
the  best  circle  of  heaven,  has  at  all  the  moral  grandeur 
of  Achilles,  Hector  or  Sarpedon.  Yet  while  this  suggestion 
may  be  partly  true,  it  is  al.so  to  be  remembered  that  the 
god  closely  resembles  the  Greek  tyrant  of  a  later  day. 
"  Absolute  power,"  says  Herodotus,  "  would  set  even  the  best 

^  Cf.  Girard,  Le  Sentiment  religieux,  p.  59,  "  CY-tait  un  monollieisme  incomplct 
ct  f^rossier."  Cf.  also  Walson,  Christianity  and  Idealism,  p.  29,  "  lOven  in  Homer 
there  are  elements  which  show  that  the  Cireck  religion  must  ultimately  accomplish 
its  own  euthanasia.  There  was  in  it  from  the  first  a  latent  contradiction  which 
could  not  fail  to  manifest  itself  openly  at  a  later  lime." 

*  Iliad,  viii.  18-26,  Purves.  This  chain  is  turned  by  Plato  into  the  sun, 
Theaetetns,  153  c.  Macrobius  and  the  Nco-Platonists  made  it  into  the 
descent  in  being  from  the  Supreme  One  through  all  nature.  Comni .  Somn. 
Scip.  i.  14,  15.  The  English  reader  will  rememl)er  how  Spenser,  speaking  of 
"  this  worlds  faire  workmanship,"  thinks  of  "  that  great  golden  chaine,"  "with 
which  it  blessed  Concord  hath  together  tide." 


OLYMPUS  279 

of  men  outside  the  customary  thoughts."  ^  The  Homeric 
god  has  not  the  safeguard  that  lies  for  us  in  consciousness 
of  limitations.  The  gods  are  stronger  than  men,  but  they 
have  no  moral  or  spiritual  superiority  whatever.- 

The  gods  then  are  a  community  of  immortals  living  on 
Olympus,  and  Zeus  is  their  king.  When  they  meet  in 
council,  they  can  remonstrate  with  Zeus,  but  they  dare  not 
oppose  him.  They  have  their  own  functions  and  their 
relative  dignities,  though  there  is  occasional  vagueness  in 
these.  On  the  other  hand,  their  characters  are  clearly  and 
strongly  marked.  Homer's  gods  are  as  individual  as  his 
heroes,  and  their  histories  are  as  well  known.  The  sensu- 
ality and  favouritism  of  Zeus  are  not  cloaked.  He  likes 
sacrifices,  he  enjoys  the  strife  of  the  Olympians ;  ^  he  is  cut 
to  the  heart  by  the  death  of  Sarpcdoii  ;  and  he  indulges 
in  furious  outbreaks  of  anger  against  other  gods.  Hera  out- 
wits and  cajoles  him  easily  and  successfully,  though  she 
too  has  suffered  from  his  anger.**  She  is  of  all  the  immortals 
the  most  unpleasant ;  she  is  very  powerful,  quite  unscrupu- 
lous, and  frankly  savage.  Zeus  twits  her  with  the  will  to 
eat  Priam  and  Priam's  sons  alive.  Poseidon  is  similarly 
arbitrary  and  unrestrained  in  his  animosities.  Athene  and 
Apollo  are  of  all  the  gods  the  most  rational  and  honourable. 
Athene  is  the  cleverest  and  most  effective  of  all  the 
Olympian  deities,  though  "she  will  never  be  forgiven  for  the 
last  betrayal  of  Hector."'*  Apollo  is  a  genial  god,  prophet, 
giver  of  oracles,  and  lord  of  the  bow,  but  hardly  as  yet  the 
sun-god,  for  Lelios  (Helios)  is  a  distinct  personality,  nor  yet 
god  of  healing,  for  that  place  is  taken  by  Paieon.  As 
god  of  the  Lycians  and  lord  of  Chrysa  he  befriends  the 
Trojans.  Aphrodite  is  a  goddess  of  great  power,  but  yet 
contemptible.  Athene  urges  Diomedes  not  to  fear  her  on 
the  field  of  battle,  and  thus  encouraged  he  wounds  Aphrodite 
on  the  wrist    without   incurring   any   special    censure    from 

'   Hdt.  iii.  80  iKTbi  rQv  iudhruv  vorj/xdruv. 

*  Mr  Andrew  Lang,  in  77te  World  of  Homer  {1910)  p.  I20,  draws  a  distinction, 
well  worth  noting,  between  the  religion  of  Homer,  "a  good  faith  to  live  and 
die  in,"  and  his  mythology. 

»  Iliad,  XX.  22.  «  Iliad,  i.  5S6-94. 

*  Gilbert  Murray,  Ancient  Greek  Literature,  p.  36. 


280 


VIRGIL 


higher  powers .^  She  is  harsh  and  cruel,  as,  for  instance, 
with  Helen  ;  and  in  the  lay  of  Demodocus  in  the  Odyssey 
the  most  explicit  tale  is  told  of  her  humiliation  in  the  net 
of  Hephaestus. 

H 

Had  oxen  or  had  lions  but  had  hands  , 

Wherewith  to  draw  and  work  such  work  as  men,  ! 

They  too  had  painted  pictures  of  the  gods,  -j 

And  given  them  bodies  like  unto  their  own  ;  | 

The  horse's  god  were  horse,  the  cow's  a  cow.^  •) 


So  wrote  Xenophanes  of  Colophon  in  the  sixth  century 
B.C.,  and  in  this  vigorous  fashion  called  the  attention  of  the 
Greeks  to  the  fact  that  anthropomorphism  was  outworn. 
Asiatic  Greece  had  fallen  before  the  Persians,  and  in  long 
wandering  and  observation  the  philosopher  had  pondered 
the  matter  and  had  found  the  explanation  in  the  low  moral 
standards  of  his  people,  and  these  he  connected  with  their 
religion.  Homer  and  Hesiod,  whom  the  Greeks  regarded 
as  the  founders  of  their  religion,  he  attacked  in  epic,  elegy, 
and  iambic,  for  what  they  said  of  the  gods. 

Homer  and  Hesiod  cast  against  the  gods 
All  that  is  shame  and  blame  among  mankind. 
The  gods,  they  said,  work  all  unrighteousness, 
They  steal,  deceive,  commit  adultery.^ 

Himself  perhaps  the  first  geologist,  impressed  by  Nature 
and  her  power,  and  by  the  vast  variety  of  human  opinion,  he 
made  no  gods  in  human  or  other  form  ;  yet  he  allowed  gods 
to  be,  but  thought  of  One  Supreme,  "  a  uniform  and  all-per- 
vading power,  governing  the  universe  as  the  soul  governs 
the  body,  endowing  it  with  motion  and  animation,  but 
inseparably  bound  up  with  it."     He  was,  says  Aristotle,  "  the 

^  Dione,  in  consoling  Aphrodite,  threatens  Diomedes  very  gently,  //.  v. 
381-415.  Contrast  Aen.  xi.  269-77,  where  Diomedes  speaks  of  his  act.  The 
change  of  tone  is  noticeable. 

2  Ritter  and  Preller  (sixth  ed.)  §  83.  Clem.  Alex.  Strom,  v.  §  109,  p.  715 
P.     Cf.  the  ironical  passage  in  Heine  Atta  Troll,  viii.  on  bear- theology. 

3  Ritter  and  Preller,  §  82.     Sextus  Empiricus  Adv.  Math.  i.  289 ;  ix.  193. 


OLYMPUS  281 

first  partisan  of  the  One."  The  attack  upon  the  gods  springs 
from  a  higher  conception  of  the  divine  nature,  and  it  is 
made  by  one  "god-intoxicated" — a  phenomenon  which  will 
recur.i 

Within  a  century  these  views  of  the  gods  had  found 
a  more  enduring  position  in  literature.  A  poet,  the  most 
popular  after  Homer  of  all  Greek  poets,  steeped  in  the 
teaching  of  the  philosophers,  and  above  all  things  impressed 
by  man's  capacity  for  wretchedness,  set  the  legends  of 
Olympus  side  by  side  with  human  misery,  and  left  the 
world  to  draw  its  inferences.  Dissatisfaction  had  long  been 
felt  with  the  moral  content  of  the  popular  religion,  but  so 
far  the  great  poets,  Pindar,  Aeschylus,^  and,  in  measure, 
Sophocles  had  accepted  the  religion  and  endeavoured  to 
inspire  it  with  higher  conceptions  of  God  and  more  serious 
ideals  of  duty.^  It  was  not  to  be  done.  The  new  thoughts 
refused  to  blend  with  the  old  legends.  Euripides  realized 
this,  and  instead  of  trying  to  blend  them  he  contrasted 
them.4 

A  striking  example  of  this  contrast  is  to  be  found  in  the 
Troades.  The  play  begins  with  a  dialogue  between  Poseidon 
and  Athena.  The  goddess  complains  that  the  Greeks  have 
treated  her  and  her  temple  with  disrespect — Ajax  has 
violated  its  technical  sanctity  without  comment  or  rebuke. 
She  proposes  to  destroy  the  fleet,  and  Poseidon  agrees. 
God  and  goddess  bury  their  old  quarrel  in  their  desire  for 
revenge,  for  it  is  nothing  else.  And  all  the  while  in  the 
dirt  at  their  feet  Hecuba  is  lying  unpitied.  The  gods 
are  coolly  discussing  their  own  trivial  wrongs,  and  they 
never   betray    the    slightest    feeling   for    the    great   queen's 

^  For  Xenophanes  see  Gomperz,  Greek  Thinkers,  bk.  ii.  ch.  i.  Burnet,  Early 
Greek  Philosophy  (2nd  ed.,  1908)  §§  55-62  ;  Adam,  Religious  Teachers  of  Greece, 
pp.  198  ff.  The  question  of  the  monotheism  of  Xenophanes  is  remote  from 
our  present  purpose.  The  quotation  in  the  text  is  from  Gomperz  (on  whom,  how- 
ever, see  Burmet's  criticism) ;  it  is  he  too  who  borrows  for  Xenophanes  the  phrase 

god-intoxicated  "  from  Novalis,  who  used  it  of  Spinoza.  The  geology  is  proved 
from  Hippolytus,  Ref.  Haer.  i.  14,  who  tells  of  his  speculations  about  fossil  shells 
found  near  Syracuse  :  raOra  5e  <pr\ai  yeveaOai  Sre  irapra  iirrfKihdrjaav  irdXai,  rbv  di 
Tijirov  IV  T(p  7rr]\<f  ^yjpavOrjvai.     Aristotle,  Met.  A.  5.  986  b  21,  cited  by  Burnet. 

'Cf.  Butcher,  Aspects  0/  Greek  Genius,  p.  108.  '  Butcher,  op.  cit.,  p.  44. 

*  Cf.  Dr  Verrall's  Euripides  the  Rationalist,  and  his  introduction  to  Ion. 


282  VIRGIL 

misery  and  widowhood,  for  the  fallen  city,  the  captive 
women,  or  the  fatherless  children.  With  a  tenderness  and 
sympathy,  hardly  to  be  equalled  in  literature,  Euripides 
paints  the  incredible  anguish  of  Hecuba,  deepening  with 
every  scene  in  the  play,  yet  not  crushing  her  capacity  for 
helping  others  to  bear  their  sorrows.  In  the  Hecuba  the 
horror  of  the  triumph  touches  even  the  conqueror.  "  All  is 
well  done,"  says  Agamemnon,  "if  in  such  things  aught  is 
well "  ^ — but  here  god  and  goddess  are  utterly  indifferent  to 
it  all.  The  spectator  and  the  reader  of  the  play  are  left  to 
draw  their  own  inferences. 

It  is  the  same  in  the  lon^  where  we  have  the  story  of  the 
rape  of  a  girl  by  Apollo.^  Years  afterwards  she  herself 
tells  with  the  clear  and  precise  detail,  which  belongs  to 
painful  memories,  how  she  exposed  the  child  of  shame,  and 
how  the  little  thing's  helpless  hands  have  been  before  her 
eyes  ever  since. 

The  Servant :  rt?  yap  viv  e^eOrjKev  ;  ov  yap  St]  au  ye- 
Creusa  :  ^/mcig,  ev  bpcpvi]  cnrapyavcocravTeg  TreTrXoi?  .   .  . 

TAe  Servant:  TXt'jjmwv  crv  ToXixrif    6  Se  Geo?  /uaXXov  aiOev. 
Creusa  :  el  iralSa  y   eiSe^  ^(eipai;  eKTeivovTo.  julol.^ 

Homer  has  many  allusions  to  such  legends,  but  no  one  had 
thought  them  out  before  Euripides. 

When  Aristophanes  attacked  Euripides  and  said  that 
the  drift  of  his  tragedies  was  atheism,^  it  is  clear  that,  if 
we  understand  atheism  in  the  sense  intended,  the  charge 
was  just.  At  the  same  time  it  would  be  difficult  to  see 
how  belief  in  the  traditional  gods  was  fostered  by  the 
author  of  the  Frogs  and  the  Birds,  if  the  orthodox  were  not 

^  Hec,  731  rcLKeWev  yap  ev  Trerrpayfiev'  earlv,  el  ri  tu>v8'  iarlv  /caXtDs. 

*  The  choric  ode  in  which  Creusa  tells  the  tale  is  indescribably  powerful, 
Euripidean  in  excelsis,  11.  881-906.  The  reader  may  compare  the  tale  of  lamos 
in  Pindar,  Olympian  vi.  47-63. 

*  Serv.   "  Who  was  it  that  exposed  him  ?     Surely  not  thou." 

Ci'e.   "  I  did  it  in  the  darkness,  wrapped  in  swaddling  bands"  .  .  . 
Serv.   "  Stern  must  thou  have  been  to  dare  it ;  and  the  god  more." 
Cre.   "  If  thou  hadst  seen  the  child,  reaching  his  hands  to  me." 
■*  Ar.  Thesm.  450  : 

vvv  d'  ovTos  if  Totcnv  rpaywdiats  ttoiuv 
roiis  dcSpas  dvairiireiKev  ovk  dvai  deovs. 


OLYMPUS  283 

always  entitled  to  more  freedom  of  speech  than  their  critics. 
Yet  ,the  indignation  of  Euripides  against  the  gods  is  not 
atheism  at  all  ;  it  is  revolt  against  inadequate  views  of  God. 
The  only  enemy  that  a  religion  or  a  theology  need  fear  is 
one  in  closer  touch  with  truth  and  morality ;  and,  however 
vague  in  a  general  way  the  theology  of  Euripides  may  have 
been,  it  at  least  set  truth  and  morality  in  the  forefront  of 
everything.  To  associate  God  and  immorality  was  to  lie ; 
it  was  better  to  say  God  meant  morality,  even  if  nothing 
more  was  said.  "  God,"  said  Plato,  "  should  always  be 
represented  as  he  really  is."  ^ 

In  discussing  education,  Plato,  it  would  appear,  went  out 
of  his  way  to  make  a  slashing  attack  on  Homer,  but  on 
further  study  it  becomes  clear  that  Homer  stood  directly  in 
his  path,  and  with  him  Hesiod.  These  two  poets,  Hero- 
dotus says,^  had  made  the  Greek  theogony ;  the  Greeks  had 
learnt  from  them  "  whence  the  several  gods  had  their  origin, 
and  whether  they  were  all  from  the  beginning  and  of  what 
form  they  were  "  ;  they  gave  their  titles  to  the  gods,  and 
distributed  to  them  honours  and  arts  and  set  forth  their 
forms.  These  poets  formed  the  basis  of  Greek  education. 
"I  will  quote  the  poem,"  says  Aeschines,  "  for  I  suppose  we 
learn  the  thoughts  of  the  poets  when  we  are  boys  that  we 
may  use  them  when  we  are  men."  ^ 

Plato,  however,  held  that  education  began  with  religion, 
and  when  he  looked  at  the  religious  teaching  of  these  two 
poets  he  peremptorily  banished  them  from  his  ideal  state. 
"  If  we  would  have  our  guardians  grow  up  to  be  as  godlike 
and  godfearing  as  it  is  possible  for  man  to  be,"  *  such  teach- 
ing would  be  intolerable.  The  object  of  life  was  assimila- 
tion to  God — e/9  ocTov  SuvaTov  avOpcoirco  ofJLoiovcrOac  Oeu).^  "  We 
must  not,"  then,  "tell  a  youthful  listener  that  he  will  be 
doing  nothing  extraordinary  if  he  commit  the  foulest 
crimes,  nor  yet  if  he  chastise  the  crimes  of  a  father  in  the 
most  unscrupulous  manner,  but  will  simply  be  doing  what 
the  first  and  greatest  of  the  gods  did.®  .  .  .  Nor  yet  is   it 

^  ■^<'/-  379  A  oroj  Tvyxdvfi  6  Oeos  dv,  del  drjTrov  airoooriov.       *  Hdt.  ii.  55. 
'  Aeschines,  in  Cteuph.  135,  quoting  Hesiod.  *  l\ep.  ii.  383  C. 

^  Ibid.  X.  613  A.  «  A  reference  to  Ilesiod's  Theogony,  e.g.  1.  490. 


284  VIRGIL 

proper  to  say  in  any  case — what  is  indeed  untrue — that  gods 
wage  war  against  gods,  and  intrigue  and  fight  among  them- 
selves ;  .  .  .  Stories  like  the  chaining  of  Hera  by  her  son, 
and  the  flinging  of  Hephaestus  out  of  heaven  for  trying 
to  take  his  mother's  part  when  his  father  was  beating  her,^ 
and  all  those  battles  of  the  gods  which  are  to  be  found  in 
Homer,  must  be  refused  admittance  to  our  state,  whether 
they  are  allegorical  or  not."  ^  But  what,  asks  Adeimantus 
in  the  dialogue,  is  to  be  the  type  of  our  stories  about  the 
gods  ?  ^  Plato  lays  down  two  canons — first,  that  God  is 
good  and  the  cause  of  good  alone ;  the  second,  that  God  is 
true  and  incapable  of  change  or  deceit.  It  was  to  be  some 
time,  however,  before  the  poets  would  definitely  accept  these 
canons,  yet  they  made  themselves  felt  in  poetry  none 
the  less. 

A  turning-point  had  been  reached  in  the  war  between 
philosophy  and  polytheism.  The  Olympians  had  borne 
the  brunt  of  the  first  campaign,  and  had  been  hopelessly 
defeated.  The  decline  of  the  Greek  city  state  completed 
their  rout.  Their  cults  were  bound  up  with  the  existence 
of  the  city  state,  and  passed  away  with  it.*  Their  names 
remained,  but  the  real  issue  was  fought  elsewhere.  The 
second  campaign  was  one,  we  may  say,  of  guerilla  warfare. 
The  gods  no  longer  "come  forth  into  the  light  of  things," 
they  keep  to  the  bush.  Apollo  and  Athene  had  been  destroyed 
by  being  seen.  The  new  gods  were  not  seen  except  by  the 
initiated.  Secret  rituals  and  mysteries  kept  them  out  of 
sight  and  in  safety.  They  had  no  legends  like  those  of  the 
Olympians,  but  they  had  myths.  When  attacked,  they 
entrenched  themselves  behind  symbol  and  allegory,  and 
passed  themselves  off  as  philosophic  conceptions.  Their 
cults  may  be  dignified  by  the  name  of  Nature-worship,  but 

'  11.  i.  586-94. 

"^  Ibid.  ii.  377  to  end  ;  iii.  392  ;  echoed  by  Cicero,  N.  D.  i.  16.  42. 

^  Ibid.  379  A  ot  TuVot  Trept  OeoXoyia^. 

*  Cf.  Watson,  Christianity  and  Idealism,  p.  20,  on  polytheism,  "as  the  vehicle 
for  the  religious  ideal  of  peoples  who  cannot  conceive  of  a  wider  bond  than  that 
of  the  nation,  or  of  the  nation,  as  other  than  a  political  unity  based  upon  the 
natural  tie  of  blood  "  ;  and  p.  22,  "  The  Greeks  only  reached  this  stage  (Mono- 
theism) when  their  narrow  civic  slate  had  already  revealed  its  inadequacy." 


OLYMPUS  285 

their   practice   was   a  mixture   of   ritual   and    obscenity — a 
religion  of  harlots.^ 

Religion  offered  a  choice  between  Cleanthes  and  (let  us 
say)  Diana  of  the  Ephesians,  and  literature  for  the  monnent 
did  not  care  greatly  for  either.  It  shifted  its  quarters  from 
Athens  to  Alexandria,  and  in  the  splendid  isolation  of  the 
Museum,  "the  birdcage  of  the  Muses," ^  devoted  itself  to 
pedantry  and  prettiness,  and  paid  the  penalty  of  apostasy 
from  reality  in  the  loss  of  every  human  interest. 

The  learned  poets  of  Alexandria  were  Virgil's  early 
models,  and  it  is  so  far  of  importance  to  realize  their  attitude 
toward  the  gods.  They  are  catholic  enough  in  their  taste, 
for  any  and  every  divine  legend  or  myth  is  acceptable  to 
them,  but  they  write  with  neither  the  good  faith  of  Hesiod, 
the  moral  sense  of  Aeschylus,  nor  Plato's  indignation.  The 
type  of  story  they  prefer  to  tell  about  the  gods  is  exactly 
that  which  Plato  would  censure,  though  the  poets  might 
have  defended  themselves  by  the  plea  that  nothing  which 
they  wrote  was  likely  to  have  any  wide  effect  in  the  corrup- 
tion of  morals.  They  wrote  for  the  learned,  for  an  audience 
which  was  far  past  believing  at  all  in  any  Olympus  except 
as  literary  material.  When  they  used  the  mythology  it 
was  almost  a  sign  that  they  were  not  serious. 

Yet  when  ApoUonius  set  about  writing  his  Argonautica, 
his  intention  was  to  create  a  serious  epic,  in  which  skill 
might  supply  the  place  of  faith.  But,  as  Boissier  puts  it, 
it  is  vain  to  cherish  the  firm  resolve  to  be  antique  ;  a  man 
always  belongs  to  his  own  age  in  spite  of  himself.^  Apol- 
lonius  is  writing  of  a  pre-Homeric  age,  for  his  heroes  belong 
to  an  earlier  generation  than  Homer's,  yet  his  Zeus  is  a 
much  later  Zeus  than  the  Zeus  of  the  Iliad.^  The  other 
gods  also  bear  upon  them  marks  of  a  later  date.  The  steady 
tendency  of  thought  away  from  polytheism  made  daily 
broader  the  gulf  between  Zeus  and  the  gods,  for  while  he 

1  Cf.  Catullus,  10.  26  ;  the  Attis  ;  Ovid,  Avi.  iii.  10.     Plutarch's  tract  de  Iside 
et  Osiride  is  a  defence,  with  admissions. 

*  Moi;<rew»'  iv  Tokapt^,  a  phrase  of  Timon  of  Phlius,  quoted  by  Athenaeus,  22  D. 
^  La  Religion  roniaine,  i.  193. 

*  So  de  la  Ville  de  Mirmont,  ApoUonius  de  Rhodes  et  Virgile,  p.  217.     I  have 
drawn  a  good  deal  here  and  elsewhere  from  this  most  ample  of  all  treatises. 


286  VIRGIL 

gained  by  it,  as  bearing  the  only  available  name  for  a  god 
who  could  be  conceived  of  as  supreme,  the  rest  proportion- 
ately lost  ground.^  He  became  a  philosophic  conception  ; 
they  became  literary  toys.  Consequently  in  the  Argonautica 
Zeus  is  a  remote  and  invisible  power,  ruling  the  moral  and 
physical  universe  alone, — well  on  the  way,  one  might  say,  to;  "' 
the  eventual  god  of  the  philosophers,  of  whom  nothing 
whatever,  not  even  being,  could  be  predicated.- 

The  other  gods  would  recognize  themselves  in  Ovid's  pan- 
theon. Goddesses  who  have  private  rooms,  who  use  dainty  • 
golden  combs,  who  pay  one  another  surprise  visits,  who 
are  threatened  by  their  little  sons,  are  mere  ornaments,  , 
mere  literary  prettiness,  as  little  divine  in  literature  as  in 
art.  As  a  result,  de  la  Ville  de  Mirmont  remarks  the  real 
want  of  relation  between  gods  and  men.  There  are  no  P' 
prayers  but  official  ones.  Zeus  is  above  and  beyond  prayer ; 
the  rest  of  the  gods  are  hardly  likely  to  awake  it.  Yet  the 
Argonauts  were  by  no  means  impious — (they  were  initiated 
into  the  rites  of  Samothrace) — it  is  only  that  prayer  is  not 
a  thing  that  would  occur  to  the  mind. 

The  Argonauts  are  so  far,  to  all  intents  and  purposes, 
Epicureans.  Such  gods  as  there  are  do  not  come  into  a 
practical  man's  calculations;  they  are  a  negligible  quantity.^ 
It  will  be  more  convenient  to  deal  with  Epicureanism  in 
the  form  in  which  it  made  its  main  appeal  to  Virgil — the 
de  Reruvi  Natura. 


ni 

So  far  we  have  been  considering  the  literary  influences 
of  Greece  upon   the  conceptions  of  the  gods^embodied   in 

^  See  Gardner,  Manual,  p.  124.  Boissier,  La  Religion  roniaine,  i.  254,  spe.ik- 
ing  of  Jupiter  by  Virgil's  clay,  sums  up  the  same  tendency  thus  :  "  II  est  devenu 
tout  a  fait  le  dieu  des  dieux,  celuien  quiles  autresdoivent  finirpars'absorber,  etqui 
profile  tous  les  jours  des  progres  que  fait  le  monotheisme. "  Cf.  Plutarch,  de  defcctit 
oraculoruni,  426  D,  the  contrast  between  6  ytteV  '0/j.rjpiK6s  Zevs  and  6  5'  dXTjOivds. 

*  See  Hatch,  Hihbert  Lectures,  lect.  ix.  pp.  254,  255,  on  the  Gnostic  oiK  Cbv 
6(6s  who  is  d.v€i>i'&T)Tos  Kal  dvovcrios.  "God,  who  was  not,  without  thought,  with- 
out perception,  without  will,  without  purpose,  without  passion,  without  desire, 
willed  to  make  a  world,"  said  a  Gnostic  (quoted  by  Hippolytus  7,  21),  who  then 
proceeded  to  explain  away  the  words  "willed"  and  "  world." 

'  Cf.  Tertullian,  oti  Nationes,  ii.  2  Epicurei  \deum  esse  volunt]  oiiosum  et  in- 
exercitatum  et,  ut  ita  dixefint,  neminem. 


OLYMPUS  287 

:he  Aeneid.  We  have  now  to  look  at  the  Roman  world, 
ind  to  note  the  attitude  to  things  divine  which  pre- 
k^ailed  in  Virgil's  Italy.  The  treatment  must  be  in  bare 
';;|Dutline. 

The  Italian  pantheon  is  at  once  remarkable  for  the  number 
of  its  gods  and  for  their  obscurity.  To  paraphrase  a  few 
words  of  St  Augustine,  it  is  as  if  "all  human  goods  were 
set  out  with  minute  particularity,"  and  they  tried  "to 
provide  a  minute  and  particular  god  for  every  one  of  them."  ^ 
For  every  contingency  in  life  a  god  or  goddess  was  provided, 
and  the  whole  of  life  was  pervaded  by  this  crowd  of  little 
gods  {turba  yninutorum  deorum)^  though  some  of  them  must 
have  had  an  activity  of  only  a  few  minutes  or  seconds. 
Thus  Cunina  watched  over  the  child  in  its  cradle,  Rumina 
presided  over  its  nutrition,  Vaticanus  over  its  crying,  and 
Numeria  taught  it  to  count'  As  might  have  been  expected, 
these  gods  and  goddesses  were  colourless,  they  had  neither 
character  nor  legend ;  they  were  little  more,  in  many  cases, 
than  verbal  nouns.  Yet  there  were  some,  who  had  to 
do  with  agriculture  and  country  life,  who  in  time  under 
Greek  influence  became  more  than  names — Liber,  Saturnus, 
Proserpina,  Faunus.  Some  were  for  centuries  after  the 
Christian  era  objects  of  dread  to  the  country  people.  Pro- 
bably we  should  understand  their  nature  better  if  we  called 
them  fairies  or  goblins — "little  people."^ 

Many  of  them  can  have  had  little  or  no  worship,  but 
others  had  definite  rituals,  but  generally  of  an  unemotional 
type.  Numa,  according  to  Dionysius  of  Halicarnassus,  was 
to  be  praised  on  account  of  the  cheapness  of  the  sacrifices 
he  ordained.^  The  prayers  had  the  hard,  dry  character 
of    legal    formulae,    and    altogether    it    was    a    "  layman's 

*  Cf.  St  Augustine  de  Civilate  Dei,  iv.  21,  and  also  iv.  8. 

*  Ibid.,  iv.  9. 

'  Ibid.,  iv.  II.  On  this  section  see  VVarde  Fowler,  The  Relis^ious  Experience 
of  the  Roman  People  (1911)  Lecture  vii. 

*  It  is  har^i  sometimes  for  those  who  love  Hans  Andersen  to  understand  that  the 
fairies  were  pre-eminently  malign  beings — a  terror  and  an  incubus  tending  to  the 
paralysis  of  the  human  mind.  The  early  Christians  ranked  it  among  the  greatest 
benefits  of  the  Gospel  that  it  '*  set  them  free  from  ten  thoasand  tyrants  " — the 
small  gods  and  the  demons. 

*  Dion.  H.  Antt.  ii.  23  r^y  euVeXeias  rCiv  Ovaiwy. 


288  VIRGIL 

religion,"  ^  cautious  rather  than  imaginative  or  reflective. 
The  ancients,  says  Gellius,^  were  in  their  religion  castissimi 
cmitisshnique — if  a  god  sent  an  earthquake,  and  some 
ceremony  were  decreed,  they  took  care  not  to  mention  the 
god's  name  for  fear  of  mistake ;  the  right  god  (or  goddess) 
would  know.  No  god  or  temple  could  receive  gift  or  legacy, = 
of  land  even  from  a  private  person  without  a  decree  of  thee! 
people.^  j 

Different  views  have  been   taken  of  this  religion.      The 
Romans   themselves  attributed   to   it   the  superior   honesty 
and  patriotism  which  marked   the  old  days,   and   this  was 
the  view  of  Polybius.     "The  most  important  difference  for 
the   better,"   he    says,   "  which    the    Roman   commonwealth  i 
appears  to  me  to  display  is  in  their  religious  beliefs.     For 
I   conceive  that  what  in  other  nations  is  looked   upon  as 
a  reproach,  1  mean  a  scrupulous  fear  of  the  gods  (Xeyw  (5e  rr\v 
Seia-iSaijuoviav),   is  the  very  thing  which   keeps  the   Roman 
commonwealth  together.     To  such  an  extraordinary  extent 
is  this  carried  among  them  {eKreTpaycpStjrai),  both  in  private 
and  public  business,  that  nothing  could  exceed   it.     Many  i 
people  might  think  this  unaccountable ;  but  in  my  opinion  \ 
their  object  is  to  use  it  as  a  check  upon  the  common  people,  i 
If  it  were  possible  to  form  a  state  wholly  of  philosophers, 
such  a  custom  would   perhaps  be  unnecessary.  .  .  .  To  my 
mind,    the    ancients    were   not    acting    without    purpose    or 
at  random  when  they  brought  in  among  the  vulgar  those  i 
opinions  about  the  gods,  and  the  belief  in  punishments  in  | 
Hades :  much  rather   do    I    think  that  men   nowadays  are  -• 
acting  rashly  and  foolishly  in  rejecting  them.*     In  fact,  as 
Varro  put  it,   it  was  to  the  state's  advantage  that  people 
should  be  deceived  in  religion.^ 

But  there  was  another  side  to  the  religion.  The  very 
vagueness  of  the  powers  and  characters  of  these  gods  made 
them  more  awful,  just  as  under   the  early  empire  the  in- 

1  The  phrase  is  Boissier's.  *  Gellius,  JV.  A.  ii.  28. 

^  Cic,  de  Leg.  ii.  9.  22  nequis  agrum  consecrate.     Cf.  Cic.  de  domo  sua,  49,  127 

*  Polybius,  vi.  56.  6-12,  tr.  Shuckburgh. 

^  Varro  ap.  Aug.  C.  D.  iv.  27.  Expedit  homines  f alii  in  religione.  CJ.  the 
very  remarkable  verses  of  Critias  on  the  invention  of  the  gods ;  cited  by  Sextus 
Empir.  adv.  Math.  ix.  54. 


•''ectii 


'Onti 


ofti 

Ti 

s  wa 
cefo 


OLYMPUS  289 


I  determinate  nature  of  the  relations  of  emperor  and  senate 
made  both  miserable  and  nervous  in  their  dealings  with 
one  another,^  No  one  knew  where  or  how  he  might  meet 
and  offend  a  god.  "To  tell  the  truth,"  says  Cicero,^  "super- 
stition has  spread  everywhere,  and  has  crushed  the  minds 
of  wellnigh  all  men,  and  made  itself  mistress  of  human 
weakness.  ...  It  follows  you  up ;  it  is  hard  upon  you  ; 
wherever  you  turn  it  pursues  you.  If  you  hear  a  prophet, 
or  an  omen  ;  if  you  sacrifice ;  if  you  catch  sight  of  a  bird  ; 
if  you  see  a  Chaldaean  or  a  haruspex;  if  it  lightens,  if  it 
thunders,  if  anything  is  struck  by  lightning  ;  if  anything 
like  a  portent  is  born,  or  occurs  in  any  way — something  or 
other  of  the  kind  is  bound  to  happen,  so  that  you  can  never 
be  at  ease  and  have  a  quiet  mind.  The  refuge  from  all  our 
toils  and  anxieties  would  seem  to  be  sleep.  Yet  from  sleep 
itself  the  most  of  our  cares  and  terrors  come."  ^  So  too  said 
Plutarch  of  superstition — "Alone  it  makes  no  truce  with 
sleep."*  Plutarch's  Lives  are  full  of  dreams.  In  the  reign 
of  Marcus  Aurelius  a  work  in  five  books  was  written  on  the 
interpretation  of  dreams  by  Artemidorus  Daldianus,  which 
is  still  extant.^ 

All  this  superstition  Lucretius  attacked  with  an  energy 
and  an  anger  that  testify  plainly  to  its  power  over  men's 
minds,  and  perhaps  over  his  own.  Over  and  over  he  insists 
that  such  gods  as  there  are  live  lapped  in  eternal  peace, 
unconcerned  with  us  and  our  doings ;  that  nothing  happens 
that  cannot  be  explained  by  natural  causes,  or  by  pure 
chance ;  that  therefore  neither  in  this  life  need  we  fear  the 
gods,  who  take  no  interest  in  us  in  any  way,  nor  in  any  other 
life,  because  there  is  no  other  life.  Epicurus  has  brought  us 
salvation  ;  he  is  the  real  god  of  mankind  ;  he  has  given  us 
;ry|   peace  of  mind  and  happiness.     And  yet — 

"  When  we  look  up  to  the  great  expanses  of  heaven,  the 

1  On  this  aspect  of  the  Empire  see  Boissier,   Cicero   and  his  Friends  (tr.) 
p.  386  f.  2  Cicero,  de  Div.  ii.  72.  148-50. 

*  See  Martha,  Lucrece,  ch.  iv.   La  religion  de  Lucrece.     It  should  be  noted 
that  the  Stoics  accepted  divination. 

*  Plutarch,  de  Superstilione  165  E  (§  3)  novt)  yap  ov  <nrlv5eTai.  irphs  rbu  vttvov, 

*  Similar  works,  of  some  size  too,  are  current  in  modern  Greek,  and  there  is 
a  steady  sale  for  small  "  books  of  dreams"  in  English. 

19 


290  VIRGIL 

aether  set  on  high  above  the  glittering  stars,  and  the  thought 
comes  into  our  mind  of  the  sun  and  the  moon  and  their 
goings  ;  then  indeed  in  hearts  laden  with  other  woes  that 
doubt  too  begins  to  wake  and  raise  its  head — Can  it  be 
perchance,  after  all,  that  we  have  to  do  with  some  vast 
divine  power  that  wheels  those  bright  stars  each  in  its 
course? "  ^ 

What  the  great  poet  felt  and  expressed  in  this  moving 
way  we  need  not  doubt  that  smaller  minds  experienced, 
who  had  less  grasp  of  Epicurean  principles,  and  fluctuated 
wretchedly  between  unbelief  and  superstition. 

There  is  yet  a  third  aspect  of  the  old  religion.  To  some 
minds  it  was  full  of  quiet  charm  and  beauty.  A  tendency 
akin  to  romanticism  meets  us  in  the  age  of  Virgil,  and 
perhaps  it  is  to  this  that  we  should  refer  the  affection  felt 
by  some  for  the  old  gods  of  the  countryside  rather  than  to 
conviction  of  their  divinity.  "Lares  of  my  fathers!"  says 
Tibullus,  "  keep  ye  m.e  safe ;  for  ye  were  my  guardians 
when  a  tiny  child  I  ran  about  at  your  feet.  No  shame  it  is 
that  you  are  of  ancient  wood  ;  even  thus  it  was  ye  dwelt  in 
the  house  of  my  grandsire  of  old.  In  those  days  they  kept 
faith  better,  when  in  the  little  shrine  a  god  of  wood  was 
content  with  humble  offerings."  ^ 

But  neither  tradition,  nor  Epicureanism,  nor  romanticism 
will  suffice  for  the  religious  temper,  and  for  it  there  was 
nothing  so  strong  and  helpful  as  the  practical  Roman 
Stoicism.  Whatever  the  origin  of  its  various  doctrines,  a 
summary  of  them  is  given  by  Cicero  in  his  second  book  De 
Natura   Deormn.^     Surveying  the   gods,  the   Roman    Stoic 

^  Lucretius,  v.  1204-10  : 

Nam  aim  stispicinms  magni  caelestia  nnindi 
tefupla  super  stellisque  micantibtis  aetherajixum, 
et  venit  in  7Jientem  salts  lunaegue  viarum, 
tunc  aliis  oppressa  malis  in  pectora  cura 
ilia  quoque  expergefactu^n  caput  erigere  injit, 
nequae  forte  dcum  nobis  iDitnensa  potestas 
sit,  vario  motu  quae  Candida  sidera  verset. 
^  Tibullus,  i.  10.  15-20  aluistis  et  idem  cursarem  vestros  cum  tener  ante  pedes. 
^  Cicero  owns  frankly  that  he  used  Greek  originals  in  composing  his  philosophic 
works — ad    Atticum    xii.    52,     3,    aTroypacpa    stint,    minore   labore  fiunt;    verba 
tanium  adfero  qtiihus  abundo. 


OLYMPUS  291 

found  some  to  be  deified  men — Hercules,  Castor,  and  Romu- 
lus (24,  62) — some  deifications  of  divine  gifts  (23,  60),  and 
some  personified  forces  of  nature ;  "  but  when  we  look  up 
at  the  sky  and  contemplate  the  celestial  bodies,  what  is  so 
clear  as  that  there  is  a  divine  power  of  excelling  intelligence, 
whereby  they  are  guided?  "  (2,  4).  The  universe  is  a  vast 
organism  permeated  and  controlled  by  an  intelligent  and 
sentient  nature  ;  "  and  when  we  say  the  universe  consists 
and  is  directed  by  nature,  we  do  not  speak  of  it  as  a  clod, 
or  a  chip  of  stone,  or  something  of  the  kind  with  no  natural 
cohesion,  but  as  a  tree  or  an  animal  "  (2i^^  82).  The  gods, 
the  Stoic  holds,  are  not  distinct  and  opposed  beings,  but  the 
varied  activity  of  the  one  God  under  various  names  ;  and 
their  proper  worship  is  veneration  with  pure,  honest,  and 
incorrupt  mind  and  voice  (28,  71).  Divine  Providence  thus 
rules  the  universe  (30,  75),  and  not  only  do  the  gods  think 
for  mankind,  but  for  men  (65,  164).^ 


IV 

Our  preliminary  survey  has  been  long,  but  it  may  have 
enabled  us  to  get  a  clearer  view  of  the  elements  which  went 
to  form  Virgil's  conceptions  of  the  divine.  He  was  an 
Italian,  brought  up  in  his  native  village,  no  doubt,  to  hold 
the  old  traditional  views  of  his  people.  His  first  great 
teacher,  however,  in  early  youth  was  Lucretius.  As  his 
experience  of  life  enlarged,  he  began  to  feel  the  weak 
points  of  Epicureanism,  and  simultaneously  he  was  reading 
very  widely  in  Greek  literature.  That  he  studied  Euripides 
carefully  is  clear,  and  it  is  hardly  conceivable  that  he  read 
none  of  Plato's  works.  A  matured  man,  he  wrote  his  epic 
on  the  model  of  Homer  ;  and  he  had,  in  accordance  with 
tradition,  to  produce  gods  of  a  conventional  Homeric  type. 

^  I  quote  the  last  clause,  as  of  special  import  :  Nee  vera  universo  generi  homi- 
mini  solum  sed  etiam  singulis  a  dis  immortalibus  consuli  et  provideri  solet.  I  have 
borrowed  a  phrase  or  two  from  Dr  J.  B.  Mayor.  Since  this  book  was  written, 
three  volumes  have  appeared,  dealing  with  Stoicism — Prof.  W,  L.  Davidson,  The 
Stoic  Creed  {\<^o']) ;  Mr  R.  D.  IWcks,  Stoic  and  Epicurean  (1910)  ;  Prof.  E.  V. 
Arnold,  Roman  Stoicism.  There  is  also  a  chapter  on  it  in  The  Cov/lict  of 
Religions  in  the  Early  Roman  Empire  (1909). 


292  VIRGIL 

But  to  do  this  exactly  was  impossible  for  one  of  so  inde- 
pendent a  character  and  such  wide  sympathies.  The  gods 
in  consequence  have  a  tendency  to  fall  away  from  the 
standard  of  Homer,  and  to  betray  other  influences. 

In  the  Eclogues  and  in  the  second  conclusion  to  the  fourth 
Georgic  the  gods  are  frankly  literary  and  Alexandrine. 
But  in  the  rest  of  the  Georgics  we  come  nearer  to  the  poet's 
mind.  The  clear  and  picturesque  outlines  of  the  literary 
gods  fade  away,  and  we  find  sometimes  a  half-romantic 
leaning  toward  the  old  country  gods  of  Italy,  sometimes 
a  gleam  of  a  vaster  and  still  more  moving  conception. 

He  tells  us  of  the  fascination    for   him  of  the  scientific 
outlook  on  life.i     The  Muses,  dear  above  all  things  to  him, 
would  teach  him,  if  they  would  hear   his   prayer,  the  laws 
of  heaven    and   earth    and    sea,    the   great    principles   that 
underlie   all   Nature.     But  if  this  is  beyond  him — the   re- 
flection shows  a  certain  consciousness  that  his  true  sphere 
is  elsewhere — be  it  his  to  love  the  country  with  its  gentle 
streams   and  woods,  and  to  let  glory  go.     Happy  indeed 
is  he  who  has  mastered   Nature's  secrets  and  by  their  aid 
has  triumphed  over  the  terrors  of  superstition  {nietus  omnes) 
and    of   death  ;    but    there    is    another    blessedness    in    the 
knowledge   of  the   country   gods,    Pan,    Silvanus,    and   the 
nymphs.     These    names    are    not  to    be  taken  literally,  as 
the  rustics  might  have  taken    them,  but  as    embodying    a 
point  of  view  which  is  on  the  whole  new  to  literature.     He 
means  that  he  will  turn   to   Nature  herself  in  her  smiling 
rather   than    in    her    scientific    mood ;    he   will   "  view    the 
outward  shows  of  sky  and  earth,  of  hill  and  valley,"  and, 
while  the  man  of  science  is  busy  and  bustling  on  the  track 
of  laws,  he  will  wait  for  "  impulses  of  deeper  birth,"  feeding 
his   mind    "in  a  wise  passiveness."     And  this  he  did,  and 
after  deciding  in  his  first  Georgic  that  the  weather-wisdom 
of  the   crows  is  not  a  divine  gift,^  he  came  at  last  to  a 
view,  which  may  be  called  technically  Stoic  or  Pythagorean, 
but  which  is  no  mere  dogma  of  the  schools  but  an  acquisi- 

1  G.  ii.  475- 

^  Contrast  Epictetus  [D.  i.  17)  oi;5^  rbv  KopaKa  6av/jLd^o/ji.€v  fj  t^v  Kopwv-qv  dXXA 
rov  deov  rov  cnj/xalyovra  5id  Toiirwy. 


OLYMPUS  393 

tion  of  his  own,  suggested  no  doubt  by  the  philosophers, 
but,  lii<e  Wordsworth's  philosophy,  learnt  from  Nature 
herself — God  pervades  earth  and  air  and  sea,  and  He  is 
the  life  that  moves  in  all  living  things,  bird  and  insect, 
farmer  and  flower,  all  dear  to  the  poet.^  It  must  not  be 
supposed  that  Virgil  grasped  this  at  all  with  the  clearness 
of  Wordsworth,  or  drew  Wordsworth's  inferences  from  it, 
but  it  was  still  his  theory  when  he  wrote  the  famous  speech 
of  Anchises  in  the  underworld.  Round  it  is  a  vast  fringe 
of  uncertainties,  and  the  greatest  of  them  is  the  doubt  as 
to  Providence  caring  for  the  individual — the  final  difficulty 
of  every  religious  mind,  on  the  solution  of  which  everything 
depends. 

In  the  Aeneid  the  presentment  of  Virgil's  own  views 
is  complicated  by  the  convention  of  epic  poetry,  which  in 
its  turn  is  modified  by  the  poet's  endeavour  to  draw  it 
as  far  as  may  be  into  touch  with  the  higher  conception  of 
divinity  which  mankind  had  learnt  from  philosophers.  He 
has  also  to  bring  the  Olympian  gods  into  friendly  relations 
with  the  native  gods  of  Italy — a  process  helped  by  the 
common  Roman  habit  of  recognizing  their  gods  in  other 
forms  in  foreign  pantheons  ;  and  he  also  finds  a  place  for 
Cybele,  who  was  probably  the  most  living  of  them  all.  It 
must  be  said  that  he  manages  his  task  well.  Sciens  de  deoruni 
itnperio  varias  esse  opiniones,  says  Stxvms, pmdentissime  tenuit 
generalitatemP-  There  is  a  uniform  tone  about  them  all,  and 
peculiarities  are  not  emphasized.  Even  the  Italian  stories, 
quaint  and  primitive  as  they  are,  do  not  seem  out  of  keep- 
ing. It  should  also  be  remarked  how  free  the  poem  is  from 
divination  and  magic — the  lamentable  side-tracks  of  popular 
and  even  of  literary  religion. 

Beginning  with  the  Homeric  aspect  of  Virgil's  gods,  we 
find  a  close  adherence  to  the  Iliad  and  the  Odyssey,  and 
sometimes  even  too  faithful  an  imitation.  The  gods  act 
as  they  did  in  Homer's  poems,  they  do  the  same  things,  but 
they  do  them  rather  stiffly.  Venus  appears  from  time  to  time 
to  help  Aeneas,  as  Athene  does  to  help  Odysseus,  and  Juno 
never  for  very  long  forgets  to  put  difficulties  in  the  way,  as 

^  G.  iv.  221.  *  On  Aen.  vi.  264.     See  p.  233. 


294  VIRGIL 

Poseidon  does  in  the  Odyssey.  There  is  also  divine  interven- 
tion in  battle  in  the  old  style.  Juno,  for  example,  borrows  a 
hint  from  Apollo.  In  the  Iliad  Apollo,  to  safeguard  Aeneas, 
snatched  him  from  the  battle  and  left  a  phantom  of  him, 
over  which  Greeks  and  Trojans  went  on  fighting.  Juno,  to 
save  Turnus,  applies  the  device  in  another  way.  The  rescue 
of  Aeneas  had  hardly  been  heroic  enough,  so  Juno  frames 
an  image,  not  of  Turnus,  but  of  Aeneas,  which  Turnus  in 
fury  pursues  from  the  field  and  on  to  a  ship  which  is  stand- 
ing in  the  river.  Juno  at  once  cuts  the  moorings,  and 
Turnus  is  safely  but  most  honourably  kidnapped.  This  is 
sufficiently  mechanical.^ 

Then  there  is  the  nymph  Juturna,  the  sister  of  Turnus. 
She  took  her  name  from  a  medicinal  spring  near  the 
fountain  of  Numicus,  from  which  water  was  brought  to 
Rome  for  sacrificial  purposes.^  She  is,  therefore,  entirely 
Italian,  but  in  Virgil's  hands  her  story  becomes  Homeric. 
She  owes  her  divinity  and  her  sovereignty  over  pools  and 
streams  to  the  love  of  Jupiter,  though  Juno  has  graciously 
made  an  exception  in  her  case  and  does  not  hate  her.^ 
Informed  by  Juno  of  her  brother's  peril,  Juturna  begins 
to  take  an  active  part  in  the  story.  She  emulates  Athene  in 
upsetting  the  arrangements  which  Trojans  and  Rutulians 
are  making  to  end  the  war  by  a  single  conflict  between 
Aeneas  and  Turnus.  But  Athene  was  more  expert,  for  she 
disguised  herself  as  a  Trojan,  and  induced  the  Trojans 
to  break  the  truce,  thus  saving  the  honour  of  the  Greeks, 
while  Juturna  employs  her  arts  with  the  Latins  and  so 
involves  her  ov/n  friends  in  disgrace.*  Later  on,  she  again 
imitates  Athene  by  ousting  her  brother's  charioteer  and 
taking  the  reins  herself,  just  as  Athene  turned  out  Sthenelus 
and  drove  the  chariot  of  Diomedes.^ 

But  of  all  the  cases  in  which  the  Virgilian  gods  imitate 
the  Homeric,  the  episode  of  the  arms  of  Aeneas  is  the  most 
conspicuous.      In    the   Iliad  Thetis   goes   to   the   house   of 

1  Iliad,  V.  449  ;  A.  x.  636-S8. 

2  Teuffel  suggests  that  her  association  with  Turnus  is  due  to  the  last  two 
syllables  of  her  name. 

3  A.  xii.  137-45.  ■*  liiad,  iv.  5>6  If.  ;  A.  xii.  222  f. 
^  A.  xii.  469  ;  Iliad,  v.  835. 


OLYMPUS  295 

Hephaestus  to  ask  arms  for  Achilles  ;  but,  before  she  has 
made  known  her  request  at  all,  Hephaestus  himself  recalls 
how  she  and  Eurynome,  daughters  of  Ocean,  had  saved 
him  when  Hera  flung  him  from  heaven,  "  and  now  is 
Thetis  come  to  our  house  :  surely  I  am  bound  to  pay  the 
price  of  life  to  sweet-haired  Thetis."^  Then  in  a  direct 
and  pathetic  speech  the  goddess  tells  him  why  she  has 
come,  and  he  at  once  goes  off  to  make  the  arms.  Virgil, 
however,  had  another  and  very  different  divine  mother  to 
deal  with,  whose  relations  with  Vulcan  were  much 
more  difficult.  Venus  has  to  intercede  with  her  husband 
on  behalf  of  her  son  who  is  not  his,  and  Virgil  has  taken 
as  his  model  the  deceiving  of  Zeus  by  Hera.^  The  passage 
:s  not  a  very  successful  one ;  it  was  severely  criticized 
in  antiquity,^  and  it  is  hardly  Hkely  to  find  defenders 
now. 

Side  by  side  with  the  Homeric  are  the  Italian  gods. 
Saturn,  Janus,  Picus,  Pilumnus,  and  Faunus  do  not  indeed 
take  an  active  part  in  the  story,  but  they  are  recognized, 
and  they  are  given  Olympian  rank.  More  it  was  hardly 
possible  to  do,  for,  like  Italian  gods  generally,  they  are  very 
dim  figures.  Most  of  them  had  one  solitary  charm  to 
weigh  against  the  various  activity  of  the  true  Olympians; 
they  are  inert  and  colourless,  but  they  are  veteres,^  the  "old 
gods  " — a  name  which  would  seem  to  imply  more  affection 
than  faith. 

They  are  apt  to  be  adorned  with  traits  borrowed  from 
the  Greek  gods.  Picus,  for  example,  the  woodpecker-god,  is 
married  to  Circe,  and  owes  his  bird-form  to  her  enchant- 
ments.^ Tiber  himself  appears  garbed  as  a  Greek  divinity 
— "  thin  lawn  veiled  him  with  its  grey  covering,  and  shadowy 
reeds  hid  his  hair"^ — but  he  has  a  genuine  Italian  oak 
hung  with  spoils  of  conquered  foes,'  We  read  of  the  god  of 
Soracte  "  for  whom  the  blaze  of  the  pinewood  heap  is  fed, 

1  Iliad,  xviii.  406,  407.  ^  A.  viii.  370  ff.  ;  Iliad  yC\s.  153-353. 

'  Gellius,  N.  A.  ix.  10.  See  also  Servius  ad  loc.  Statius  is  still  less 
happily  inspired.  He  makes  Venus  remind  Mars  of  Lemniacae  catenae,  Theb, 
iii.  272. 

*  Cf.  A.  vii.  254  vcteris  Fauni  ;  viii.  187,  and  ix.  786  veterunique  deoruin. 

*  A.  vii.  189.  •  A.  viii.  32.  '  A.  x.  423. 


296  VIRGIL 

where  we  thy  worshippers  in  pious  faith  print  our  steps 
amid  the  deep  embers  of  the  fire  "^ — he  is  called  Apollo,  but 
we  may  be  sure  it  was  not  his  original  name.  In  close 
connexion  with  Apollo  are  the  Penates,  who,  according 
to  the  story,  came  from  Troy,^  but  are  certainly  Italian. 
Ancient  antiquaries  indeed  debated  whether  Apollo  were 
not  one  of  the  Penates  himself,  which  would  be  quite  un- 
Homeric.^  Jupiter  has  both  Greek  and  Italian  traits.  To 
Evander  he  is  (by  a  beautiful  inspiration)  the  Arcadian 
Jupiter  ;*  in  another  place  he  is  Jupiter  Anxurus  ;  ^  he  is  at 
the  same  time  Jove  of  the  Capitol,  as  a  famous  passage 
attests  ;^  and  to  larbas  he  seems  to  have  been  Ammon.'  In 
a  word,  he  is  the  Jove  of  the  Roman  Empire,  a  god  of 
many  names  and  characters,  a  symbol  of  Rome's  policy 
in  dealing  with  religions.  Juno  likewise  is  Hera  of  Samos,^ 
Juno  Lacinia,^  Juno  of  Gabii,^°  and  Juno  Caelestis  of  Carthage. 
The  rites  which  are  paid  to  these  gods  are  generally  Roman, 
without  distinction  between  those  of  Greek  and  those  of 
Italian  origin. 

Virgil  is  endeavouring  to  bring  all  the  gods  into  real 
contact  with  Rome,  and  to  do  this  he  has  to  make  them 
serious    beings,  possessed    of  Roman    dignity  and    gravity. 

^  A.  xi.  785-8  (Mackail).  Pliny  {N.  H.  vii.  2.  19)  alludes  to  the  fact,  but  says 
nothing.  Servius'  comment  may  be  quoted.  "  So  says  Virgil  ;  but  Varro, 
everywhere  an  opponent  of  religion  {ubiqtie  exptignator  religionis),  in  describing  a 
certain  drug,  says,  '  as  the  Hirpini  do,  who,  when  they  have  to  walk  through 
fire,  touch  their  soles  with  a  drug.'  "  Fire-walking  may  still  be  seen  in  Japan  ; 
a  friend  of  mine  has  described  to  me  how  one  of  his  own  students  in  Economics 
pulled  off  his  patent  leather  boots  and  did  it  before  his  eyes.  Mr  Saville,  of  the 
London  Missionary  Society,  saw  it  done  on  Huahine,  near  Tahiti.  It  is  also 
done  on  Kandaru,  in  the  Fiji  group,  by  the  inhabitants  of  a  particular  village, 
with  whom  it  is  hereditary.     See  Andrew  Lang,  Modern  Afythology,  ch.  xii. 

*  A.  ii.  296  ;  iii.  12,  «S<:c. 

■*  Macrobius,  Sat-  iii.  4.  6.  Nigidius  and  Cornelius  Labeo  thought  the  Penates 
must  be  Apollo  and  Neptune.  Warde  Fowler,  Religious  Experience  of  the  Roman 
People,  Lecture  iv.  (on  the  religion  of  the  family). 

*  A.  viii.  573  : 

At  7J0S,  0  superi  et  divum  tu  maxime  rector 
luppiter,  Arcadii,  quaeso,  misei-escite  regis. 
De  la  Ville  de  Mirmont,  Ap.  et  Virg.  p.  230  on  this  conflate  Jupiter. 

^  A.  vii.  799.  •*  A.  viii.  351  f.  '  A.  iv.  198. 

^  A.  i.  12-16,  Carthage  is  preferred  by  her  to  Samos.  *  A.  iii.  552. 

»»  A.  vii.  682. 


OLYMPUS  297 

Consequently  he  no  longer  plays  with  them  as  the  Alex- 
indrine  poets  did,  and  as  he  did  himself  with  the  delightful 
Did  Silenus  in  the  sixth  Eclogue,  whose  bad  ways  we  forgive 
or  his  good  temper  and  the  song  he  steals  from  Lucretius — 
md  for  his  brow  and  temples  stained  with  the  mulberry 
uice.  Everything  is  more  serious.  For  instance,  the  inter- 
view between  Venus  and  Cupid,  with  reference  to  Dido, 
ivas  suggested  by  a  similar  episode  in  the  Argonautica,  but 
it  is  graver,  more  dignified,  and  less  pretty.  Cupid  is  not 
1  Ptolemy  baby  like  Eros  in  the  poem  of  Apollonius,  but  "  a 
fjuer  bullatiis  of  the  good  old  days."  ^ 

Virgil's  gods  are  thoroughly  Roman,  in  whatever  epics 
they  have  adventured  themselves  in  the  past.  There  is 
a  fine  Roman  propriety  about  rhem,  which  is  a  little  stiff 
perhaps,  but  very  proper  to  reclaimed  characters  who  are 
trying  to  forget  they  were  ever  at  Alexandria.  Venus, 
a  cruel  and  rather  contemptible  character  in  the  Iliad, 
is  in  the  Aeneid  pre-eminently  a  divine  mother — alma 
Vemis.  Sainte-Beuve  calls  her  "  invariably  charming,  tender, 
loving,  and  yet  sober  and  serious."  In  an  interesting  study 
he  contrasts  the  meeting  of  Aphrodite  and  Anchises  in  the 
Homeric  Hymn  to  Aphrodite  with  that  of  Venus  and  Aeneas 
in  the  first  Aeneid!^  Virgil  had  read  the  Hymn,  but  his 
treatment  is  very  different.  That  Venus  is  Aeneas'  mother 
accounts  for  much  of  the  change,  but  the  whole  interview 
is  conceived  in  a  different  tone.  Venus  appears  in  the 
garb  and  guise  of  Diana,  as  a  huntress  maiden.  There  is 
grace,  dignity,  and  charm  about  her,  but  nothing  voluptuous, 
as  in  the  Hymn. 

Jupiter,  however,  is  in  many  ways  the  most  interesting 
of  Virgil's  gods,2  He  has  Homeric  traits,  but  he  is  mainly 
Roman.  He  has  come  nearer  to  mankind  than  Apollonius 
allowed  him  ;  from  a  Ptolemy,  we  might  say,  he  has  become 
an  Augustus.  He  is  a  grave  and  wise  god,  free  from  the 
tyrannical  and  sensual  characteristics  of  the  Homeric  Zeus. 
As  with  Aeneas,  so  in  Jupiter's  case,  Virgil  lapses  at  times 

^  De  la  Ville  de  Mirmont,  Ap.  de  Kh.  et  Virgile,  p.  647,     See  p.  57. 

*  Etude  sur  Virgile,  pp.  250-8. 

^  Boissier,  La  Religion  romaine,  i.  254. 


i;:. 


298  VIRGIL 

into  weak  imitations  of  Homer,  and  we  hear  of  Juturna 
and  of  Ganymede  in  connexion  with  him  ;  but  as  a  rule 
he  conforms  more  to  what  Plato  thinks  the  divine  nature  5  ; 
should  be.  "If  the  poets  will  not  so  far  respect  all  the 
gods,"  says  Plato,  ''  at  least  we  shall  entreat  them  not  to 
presume  to  draw  so  unlike  a  picture  of  the  highest  of  the 
gods  as  to  make  him  say,  '  Ah  me,  now  is  it  fated  that 
Sarpedon,  my  beloved,  shall  fall  beneath  the  hand  of 
Patroclus,  IMenoetius'  son.' "  ^  Accordingly  in  the  Aeneid 
it  is  Hercules  who  sheds  unavailing  tears  for  Pallas,  while 
Jupiter  consoles  him.  "  *  Each  has  his  own  appointed  day,  '^ 
short  and  unrecoverable  is  the  span  of  life  for  all ;  but  to 
spread  renown  by  deeds  is  the  task  of  valour.  Under  high 
Troy  town  many  and  many  a  god's  son  fell  ;  nay,  mine  own  f' 
child  Sarpedon  likewise  perished.  Turnus  too  his  own 
fate  summons,  and  his  allotted  period  has  reached  the  goal.' 
So  speaks  he,  and  turns  his  eyes  away  from  the  Rutulian 
fields."-  Jupiter  feels  the  sorrow  of  men  here,  but  he 
does  not  propose,  as  he  did  in  the  Iliad,  to  overturn  the 
order  of  things  by  rescuing  the  doomed  hero.  His  attitude 
at  the  Council  of  the  Gods  has  been  compared  to  the 
undecided  conduct  of  Latinus,  and  his  general  position 
with  reference  to  Destiny  is  on  the  whole  vague.  But 
in  the  main  he  sustains  the  character  of  a  great  and  wise 
god  very  successfully. 

Hercules  too  is  a  god  who  owes  something  to  the 
philosophers.  The  Herakles  of  the  Attic  stage,  braggart, 
bully,  and  glutton,  has  given  way  to  the  Herakles  of 
Prodicus'  fable,  a  god  vowed  to  the  service  of  Virtue,^  not 
undeserving    of    his   canonization    by    the    Stoics.*     Virgil 


iie* 


k 


1  riato,  AV/.  iii.  3.S8.     liiad,  xvi.  433.  *  A.  x.  467-74,  Mackail. 

'  Xenophon,  Mem.  ii.  i.  21  ft".,  "The  choice  of  Herakles.''  Cl".  Diod.  Su:  i.  2.- 
*  Seneca,  D/a/.  ii.  2.  I,  counts  Hercules  among  the  s:igcs  ;  Epictetus  /?.  iii. 
24,  on  his  trust  in  Zeus  his  father,  and  D.  iii.  26,  on  Herakles  as  el<rayi>}yei>s 
diKaioavviji  Kai  octiottjtos  ;  Apuleius,  Florida,  iv.  22,  calls  him  a  philosopher  ; 
and  Julian,  Or.  vi.  p.  187  c,  says  that,  besides  conferring  other  benefits  on 
mankind,  he  was  the  founder  of  the  Cynic  philosopliy.  Horace  himself 
recognizes  the  god's  new  dignity  :  hac  arte  Pollux  et  vag-us  Hercules  {C.  iii.  3.  9). 
See  Neltleship,  Essays,  i.  p.  135.  Compare  also  the  question  of  Cotta  in  Cicero, 
A^.  D.  iii.  20.  42  quern  fotissimum  Hereultm  calamus,  scire  velim  ;  plurcs  enim 
tradunt  nobis. 


OLYMPUS  299 

*|jts  into  the  mouth  of  Evander,  the  most  serious  and 
nerable  figure  in  Italy,  the  story  of  Hercules'  connexion 
Ith    Rome,    and    the   justification    of  his    cult,   as  that  of 


saviour  and  deliverer. 

Non  haec  sollemnia  nobis, 
has  ex  more  dapes,  hanc  tanti  numinis  aram 
vana  superstitio  veterumque  ignara  deorum 
imposuit  ^  (A.  viii.  185). 


onington  remarks  that  one  might  almost  suppose  Virgil 

ut:|ere  to  be  defending  religion   against  Lucretius,  who  had 

ken    pains    to    depreciate    Hercules    in    comparison    with 


.^.picurus.'* 

In  the  same  spirit  Virgil  tones  down  or  apologizes  for 
2gends  which  he  has  to  tell.  For  instance,  Misenus 
hallenged  Triton  to  a  contest  in  trumpeting,  and  the  god 
lew  him  for  jealousy  (aemu/us).  So  said  the  legend  ; 
)ut  envy,  according  to  Plato,  "stands  outside  the  divine 
horus,"  ^  so  the  poet  adds  a  caveat  of  his  own — 

si  credere  dignum  est* 

Si  credere  dignum  est\  The  exclamation  raises  a 
ieeper  issue  and  one  of  wider  import  than  the  character 
Df  Triton  ;  for  is  not  all  Olympus  involved  ?  So  at  least 
the  poet  hints,  or  half  hints,  at  the  very  beginning  of  his 
poem. 

Tantaene  animis  caelestibus  irae  "i  ^ 

He  knew  the  answer  that  all  the  philosophers,  from  Plato 
to  Lucretius,  would  make.     It  was  his  own  answer.     At  the 

*  "  No  idle  superstition  that  knows  not  the  gods  of  old  has  ordered 
these  our  solemn  rites,  this  customary  feast,  this  altar  of  august  sanctity " 
(Mackail). 

*  Lucretius,  v,  exordium. 

*  Plato,  Phaedrus,  247  A  :   (pdovos  yap  ^^w  Oeiov  xopov  laraTai. 

*  j4.  vi.  173.  "  If  belief  is  due."  Cf.  the  same  expression  (G.  iii.  391)  in  the 
case  of  another  legend,  borrowed  by  Virgil  from  Nicander  (Macr.  Sa/.  v.  22.  10), 
and  from  Virgil  by  Browning,  Pan  and  Luna. 

*  "  Can  heavenly  natures  hate  so  fiercely  and  so  long?"  (Conington). 


300  VIRGIL 

end  he  addresses  the  question  directly  to  Jove  himself,  anc 
in  a  more  searching  form — 

Tanton'  placuit  concurrere  motu, 
luppiter,  aeterna  gentes  in  pace  futuras  ?  ^  (A.  xii.  503). 

The  question  goes  beyond  Jupiter,  for  even  he  admits 
that  things  lie  on  the  knees — not  of  gods,  but  of  still  higher 
powers.  At  a  critical  moment  in  the  war  between  Aeneas 
and  Turnus,  Jupiter  declares  that  he  will  do  nothing  ;  he 
will  be  impartial — 

rex  luppiter  omnibus  idem. 

Venus  elsewhere  hints  that  Fate,  which  she  loosely  connects 
with  Jupiter,  is  the  supreme  power  in  the  world  ;^  and  Juno 
at  the  last  admits,  on  the  suggestion  of  her  husband,  that 
Fate  is  too  powerful  for  her  and  yields  to  it.^  But  Jupiter 
is  more  frank.  He  will  take  no  part  in  the  war,  he  says, 
cloaking  his  inaction  with  the  fine  phrase  quoted,  and 
continuing  "  the  Fates  will  find  a  way." 

Fata  viam  invenient. 

"  The  poet  seems,"  writes  an  ancient  commentator,  "  to  have 
shown  here  that  the  Fates  are  one  thing  and  Jupiter 
another.  "  *  But  Jupiter  says  more  than  this,  for,  though  we 
must  give  him  leave  to  speak  as  loosely  as  we  do  ourselves 
in  common  talk,  it  is  remarkable  that  he  recognizes  another 
factor  in  human  affairs — 

Sua  cuique  exorsa  laborem 
fortunamque  ferent. 

"  As  each  has  begun,  so  shall  his  toil  and  his  fortune  be." 

Jupiter  is  raising  the  same  question  which  Tacitus 
debated    a   century    after   Virgil's    day.     "  As    for    myself," 

^  "  Was  it  thy  will,  O  God,  that  nations  destined  to  everlasting  peace  should 
clash  in  so  vast  a  shock?"  (Mackail). 

2  A.  iv.  no.  ^  A,  xii.  794,  795  ;  810-20. 

*  Interpolation  in  Servius,  ad  A.  x.  in  (the  passage  in  question)  viddur  hie 
osleudisse  aliiui  esse  fata,  aliud  lovein. 


OLYMPUS  301 

vrote  the  historian,  "  my  mind  remains  in  doubt  whether 
luman  affairs  are  ordered  by  fate  and  unchangeable 
lecessity  or  proceed  by  chance.  For  you  will  find  the 
visest  of  ancient  philosophers  and  their  followers  at 
variance  on  this  point.  Many  firmly  believe  that  the  gods 
;ake  no  care  for  our  beginning  or  our  end,  or  for  man's 
ife  at  all  .  .  .  Others  again  hold  that  there  is  a  corre- 
icai  spondence  between  fate  and  the  course  of  events  ;  only 
that  this  does  not  depend  upon  the  movements  of  the 
stars,  but  on  certain  elemental  principles,  and  on  the 
sequence  of  natural  causes.  Yet  even  so  they  would  leave 
to  us  our  choice  of  life ;  which  once  made,  what  comes 
after  is  fixed  immutably."^  Does  Jupiter  mean  by  his 
sua  exorsa  at  all  what  Tacitus  means  by  his  ubi  elegeris  ? 
that  in  some  way  men  are  the  authors  of  their  own 
destiny,  and  must  go  through  with  what  they  begin  ? 
Is  this  Jupiter's  idea?  He  does  not  explain  it,  and  the 
gods  do  not  ask.2 

Whatever  interpretation  we  put  on  Jupiter's  speech,  it  is 
quite  clear  that  the  gods  are  not  the  supreme  rulers  of  the 
universe.  Nor  are  they,  it  also  follows  from  the  study 
of  the  Aeneid,  even  those  manifestations  of  the  supreme 
divinity,  which  the  Neo-Platonists  later  on  held  them  to  be. 
Virgil,  filled  with  the  thought  of  the  divine  life  pervading 
all  things,  hardly  seems  to  conceive  of  the  Olympian  gods  as 
sharing  that  life.  He  has  done  everything  possible  for 
them ;  he  has  toned  down  the  dark  elements  in  their 
stories ;  he  has  emphasized  the  grave  and  moral ;  he  has 
Platonized  them  as  far  as  he  could ;  but  he  has  not  made 
them  live.  Set  in  the  Aeneid,  as  in  the  plays  of  Euripides, 
side  by  side  with  human  life  and  all  it  means  of  love  and 
sorrow,    but   drawn    with    more    kindliness    of   feeling,   the 

^  Tacitus.  Annals,  vi.  22  (Ramsay's  translation)  Fatum  quidem  congrtiere  rebus 
putant,  ted  non  e  vagis  stellis,  verum  apud  princifia  et  nexus  naturalium 
causarum ;  ac  tamtn  electionem  vitae  nobis  relinquitnt,  quani  ubi  elegeris,  cerium 
imminent ium  ordinefn. 

*  Evander,  A.  viii.  333-6,  attributes  his  coming  to  Italy  at  once  to  fate, 
fortune,  and  divine  oracles.  Servius  tries  to  explain  the  statement  by  reference 
to  the  Stoics  and  to  the  ingenuity  of  Virgil.  See  Gellius,  N.  A.  vii.  (vi.)  2,  for 
an  interesting  discussion  by  Clirysippus  of  fate  and  freewill. 


302  VIRGIL 

Olympian  gods  are  found  to  be  dead  beyond  disguise — thei 
truth  cannot  be  hid.  They  are  mere  epic  machinery.  Nor 
is  it  otherwise  with  the  gods  of  Italy  ;  they  perhaps  had 
never  lived  in  any  personal  way.  Is  the  throne  of  heaven 
vacant,  or  is  there  no  throne  at  all,  or  has  it  another 
occupant  ? 

It  is  quite  clear  from  the  sixth  book  that  Virgil  is  no 
longer  an  Epicurean.  The  traditional  gods  of  heaven  are 
conspicuously  absent  from  man's  existence  before  birth 
and  after  death,  but  all  his  life  is  permeated  by  divine 
law  and  is  indeed  itself  divine,  and  this  is  Stoic  doctrine. 
Throughout  the  whole  Aeneid  we  are  taught  to  think 
that  Destiny,  if  not  divine,  at  least  greater  than  the 
traditional  gods,  has  plans  and  aims,  which  it  achieves ; 
in  other  words,  that  Providence  rules  the  affairs  of  men, 
whatever  Providence  may  be  and  in  whatever  way  it 
works.  This  again  is  Stoic  doctrine.  But  this  is  not  the 
whole  matter. 

" '  Dear  city  of  Cecrops,'  says  he  of  old  ;  and  will  not  you 

say,  '  Dear  city  of  Zeus ' .?  "     So  wrote  Marcus  Aurelius  in 

his  diary,*  and  the  form    of  utterance  is   significant.     The 

exclamation  may  seem  a  natural  deduction  from  the  Stoic 

view  of  the  world,  but  the  Stoic  does  not  easily  say,  "  Dear 

city  of  Zeus,"  because  it  remains  after  all  only  a  deduction 

for  him.     But  to  the  poet  of  the    Georgics   it    is   no    mere 

deduction,  it  is  a  living  truth.     The  world  is  a  "dear  city" 

to  Virgil — 

\ 
The  beauty  and  the  wonder  and  the  power,  ^ 

The  shapes  of  things,  their  colours,  lights  ^  and  shades,      \ 

Changes,  surprises. 

To  him,  as  to  Goethe,  the  world  is  the  living  garment  of 
Deity ,^     The  Stoic  finds  little  value  in  the  particular  beauties 

1  Marcus  Aurelius,  iv.   23  'E/cetvos  ii.iv   (prjaf   IldXt  ^l\r)  KiKpoiro?'  aii  S^  ovk 
ipeh'  "U  TToXt  <lii\-q  Aids ;   "  He"  is  Aristophanes  in  a  lost  play. 

*  Cf.  Georgics  i.  46  [ittcijiiai]  sulco  altritus  splendescere  votner. 

*  Faust,  Part  I.  Sc.  i.     The  Geist  speaks: 

In  Lebensfluthen,  im  Thatensturm 

Wall'  ich  auf  und  ab  .   .  . 

So  schafF  ich  am  saufenden  Webstuhl  der  Zeit, 

Und  wirke  der  Gottheit  lebendiges  Kleid. 


OLYMPUS  303 

■till  of  Nature,  which  means  so  much  to  Virgil.     "  Decay  is  in 

^0  the    material   substance   of  all  things  ;  they  are  but  water, 

^a(  dust,  bones,  stench."^     The  "dear  city  of  Zeus  "  is  after  all 

a  depressing  place  of  abode,  or  at  least  the  visible  part  of  it, 

ei  the  suburb  of  our  habitation.     Pan    and  Silvanus  and    the 

nymphs  are  very  unphilosophic  creatures,  but  they  at  least 

represent  a  feeling  that  all  Nature  is  not  "  water,  dust,  bones, 

stench,"  and  they  are  so  far  real — a  poetic  protest  against 

one  side  of  Stoicism. 

Again,  the  "dear  city  of  Cecrops  "  is  the  expression  of  a 
poet's  love  for  Athens,  a  feeling  which  the  Stoic  would  only 
doubtfully  approve.  "The  Stoics,"  writes  Dr  Caird,  "are 
driven  back  upon  the  isolated  inner  life  of  the  individual, 
and  have  to  confine  the  absolute  good  to  the  bare  state  and 
direction  of  the  will.  Now  the  mistake  of  this  negative 
attitude  may  easily  escape  notice,  so  long  as  it  shows  itself 
merely  in  treating  wealth,  or  fame,  or  pleasure,  as  indifferent ; 
but  when  it  leads  the  Stoics  to  deal  in  the  same  way  with 
the  ties  of  kindred  and  friendship,  of  family  or  nation,  and 
to  place  virtue  in  obedience  to  an  abstract  law  which  is 
independent  of  all  these,  we  begin  to  suspect  some  mistake 
or  over-statement.  .  .  .  They  do  not  realize  that  the  con- 
sciousness of  self  as  a  moral  being,  and  the  consciousness 
of  other  selves  as  members  of  one  society,  are  two  factors 
that  cannot  be  separated."  ^  Dr  Caird  writes  from  a 
point  of  view  which  will  hardly  be  attributed  to  Virgil, 
and  yet  Virgil  in  his  own  way  felt  the  same  weakness  in 
the  Stoic  position. 

Tantae  molis  erat  Romanam  condere  gentem.^ 

Was  there  not  a  danger  that  in  turning  away  from  Juppiter 
Capitolinus,  from  Vesta  and  the  Penates,  the  philosopher 
might  lose  something  real,  of  which  these  had  been  a 
symbol  ? 

^  Marcus  Aurelius,  ix.  36.  This  is  not  the  only  mood  oi  Marcus,  it  may  be 
noted. 

*  Dr  Edward  Caird,  Evolution  of  Theology  in  the  Greek  Philosophers,  vol.  ii. 

P-  153- 

*  "  So  mighty  a  task  it  was  found  the  Roman  race." 


304  VIRGIL 

There  lies  the  essence  of  Virgil's  uncertainty.  On  onei 
side  is  the  teaching  of  the  philosophers  with  an  imperious 
call  which  he  was  glad  to  obey ;  but  on  the  other  side : 
there  was  the  poet's  instinct,  as  imperious  and  as  true. 
The  delight  he  took  in  Nature,  the  deep  love  he  felt  for 
his  country,  seemed  to  be  bound  up  with  the  old  gods 
of  farm  and  city.  Figments  they  might  be,  or  slight 
embodiments  of  the  divine,  but  so  long  as  men  had  held 
by  them  the  great  cardinal  virtues  had  lived  and  flourished 
in  Italy,  and  men  had  set  the  state  before  themselves. 
Who  was  to  guarantee  as  much  of  Stoicism  ?  Marcus 
Aurelius  had  not  yet  lived,  and  even  he  did  not  keep  all 
that  Virgil  wanted. 

But  we  may  go  further  still.  Individualistic  as  Stoic 
teaching  was,  it  did  not  provide  enough  for  the  individual. 
The  Stoic  sage  is  a  solitary  in  the  world  around  him, 
however  much  he  is  at  home  in  "  the  city  of  Zeus  "  of  his 
thoughts — and  perhaps  even  Zeus  leaves  him  a  little  too 
much  alone.  He  has  to  be  for  ever  assuring  himself  and 
adjuring  himself;  it  is  all  his  own  mind's  doing,  and  no 
assurance,  none  at  least  of  a  distinct  kind,  comes  to  him  from 
heaven.  The  diary  of  Marcus  is  a  melancholy  record.  Now 
the  old  religion  had  been  cheerful.  The  sage  might  smile 
at  the  gods  of  clay  and  ancient  wood,  and  at  their  poor 
little  offerings  of  meal  and  salt  ;  yet  in  the  old  days  and  in 
the  old  religion  man  and  god  had  come  very  near  together, 
they  had  known  one  another,  the  god  was  interested  in  the 
individual — and  this  was  a  happiness  which  the  Stoic 
would  have  as  a  rule  to  forgo,  which  he  might  despise.  But 
if  ever  a  man's  being  was  an  expression  of  a  need  of  the 
divine,  the  character  of  Aeneas  is  just  such  an  expression. 
His  melancholy  anticipates  that  of  Marcus,  and  has  the 
same  root.  The  poet  craves  for  recognition  by  God,  and  if 
he  does  not  express  this  craving  in  the  articulate  speech  of 
philosopher  or  devotee,  in  the  no  less  real  voice  of  poetry  it 
is  clearly  to  be  heard. 

Stoicism  draws  him  and  holds  him,  but  the  poet  in  Virgil 
cries  out  against  a  world  with  no  content  and  no  meaning, 
where  the  only  reality  is  the  individual,    and    even    he   is 


OLYMPUS  30s 

incomplete.  The  old  religion  had  in  its  crude  and  poor  way- 
provided  against  these  evils,  and  so  far  the  poet  felt  it  to  be 
true  and  clung  to  it.  His  mind  and  his  reason  go  with  the 
philosophers ;  his  heart  turns  to  the  faith  of  the  past.  He 
realizes  the  truth  in  both,  but  how  to  reconcile  them  was 
godi    his  problem,  as  it  is  ours. 


CHAPTER  XII 
INTERPRETATION  OF  LIFE.— 5.  RESULTS 

'Tis  not  the  calm  and  peaceful  breast 

That  sees  or  reads  the  problem  true  ; 
They  only  know  on  whom  't  has  prest 

Too  hard  to  hope  to  solve  it  too. — Clough, 

'Apfiovir]  d(pavr]s  (pavepTJs  Kfidmcv. — Heraclitus,  fr.  47. 

ONE  day  in  conversation  with  Eckermann  the  aged 
Goethe  began  to  talk  of  certain  poets  of  the  time. 
"They  write,"  he  said,  "as  if  they  were  ill  and  the 
whole  v/orld  were  a  lazaretto.  They  all  speak  of  the  woe 
and  misery  of  this  earth.  .  .  .  All  are  discontented,  and  one 
draws  the  other  into  a  state  of  still  greater  discontent.  This  is  a 
real  abuse  of  poetry,  which  was  given  to  us  to  hide  the  little 
discords  of  life  and  to  make  man  contented  with  the  world  and 
his  condition.  ...  I  have  hit  on  a  good  word  to  tease  these 
gentlemen.  I  will  call  their  poetry  '  Lazaretto-poetry,'  and 
I  will  give  the  name  of  Tyrtaean-poetry  to  that  which  not 
only  sings  war-songs,  but  also  arms  men  with  courage  to 
undergo  the  conflicts  of  life."  ^ 

The  "  ancient  quarrel  between  poetry  and  philosophy  "  is 
still  kept  alive  by  their  camp-followers,  and  an  obiter  dictum, 
such  as  Goethe  has  here  let  fall  upon  the  function  of  poetry, 
will  scarcely  escape  challenge  from  the  adherents  of  certain 
poetic  schools.  He  implies,  they  will  say,  too  much  purpose 
in  poetry ;  for,  if  a  poet  turn  moralist  or  philosopher,  all  is 
over  with  his  art.  Goethe  knew  this  as  well  as  any  one, 
and  so  far  was  he  from  betraying  poetry  to  the  philosophers 
that  he  has  not  escaped  their  censure  for  some  of  his  utter- 
ances upon  philosophy.      "  Man,"  he  said,  "  is  born  not  to 

1  Eckermann,  Conversations  7vttk  Goethe,  Sept.  24,  1827  (Tr.  John  Oxenford, 
1850). 

306 


RESULTS  307 

solve  the  problems  of  the  universe,  but  to  find  out  where  the 
problem  begins,  and  then  to  restrain  himself  within  the  limits 
of  the  comprehensible."  ^  But  perhaps  even  this  will  not  satisfy 
his  critics  in  the  camp  of  poetry.  Poetry,  they  say,  has  nothing 
to  do  with  problems  of  the  universe,  or  with  problems  at  all ;  its 
business  is  with  man  and  what  he  does,  what  he  suffers,  and 
what  he  enjoys.  To  this  the  great  poets  would  probably 
make  no  objection.  But  somehow  when  they  handle  these 
subjects  they  have  a  tendency  to  come  very  near  philosophy 
— everything  means  so  much  more  to  the  great  mind ;  the 
universe  and  its  problem  are  involved  in  even  the  smallest 
things.  Carlyle,  in  discussing  Schiller's  shortcomings,  has 
indicated  that  they  are  due  to  nothing  so  much  as  his  failure 
to  feel  the  values  and  implications  of  the  small  and  the 
ordinary.  "  The  common  doings  and  interests  of  Men,"  he 
says,  "  mean  as  they  seem,  are  boundless  in  significance ; 
for  even  the  poorest  aspect  of  Nature,  especially  of  living 
Nature,  is  a  type  and  manifestation  of  the  invisible  spirit 
that  works  in  Nature.  There  is  properly  no  object  trivial 
or  insignificant :  but  every  finite  thing,  could  we  look  well, 
is  as  a  window,  through  which  solemn  vistas  are  opened  into 
into  Infinitude  itself."  Aristotle  and  Wordsworth^  have 
said  very  much  the  same,  each  in  his  own  way. 

If  we  attach  any  serious  value  to  Virgil's  poetry,  we  are 
almost  bound  to  ask  how  it  will  stand  criticism  upon  these 
lines;  to  inquire  how  far  he  realizes  the  problem  of  the 
universe;  whether  the  individual  case  is  to  him  a  type  and 
manifestation  of  some  invisible  spirit  at  work  in  Nature ; 
how  far  he  takes  in  the  whole  experience  of  man,  what  value 
he  attaches  to  it,  and  finally  what  inference  he  draws  from 
it  all ;  and  whether  he  belongs  to  the  Lazaretto  school  or  to 
the  Tyrtaeans.  It  will  be  of  interest  and  indeed  important 
to  determine,  if  we  can,  to  which  school  he  belongs  ;  it  will 
be  of  far  more  interest  and  import  to  learn  how  he  stands 
toward  the  problem  of  the  universe. 

A  favourite  way  of  criticizing  the  universe  is  the  method 
recommended  by  Robinson  Crusoe.     "  I  began,"  he  said,  "  to 

1  Ibid.,  Oct.  15,  1825. 

■■^  In  the  preface  he  wrote  for  the  1800  edition  oi  Lyrical  Ballads. 


3o8  VIRGIL 

comfort  myself  as  well  as  I  could  and  to  set  the  Good 
against  the  Evil,  that  I  might  have  something  to  distinguish 
my  Case  from  worse ;  and  I  stated  it  very  impartially,  like 
Debtor  and  Creditor,  the  Comforts  I  enjoy'd  against  the 
Miseries  I  suffer'd."  The  balance  in  his  account,  it  will  be 
remembered,  was  in  favour  of  good  "  upon  the  whole  " ;  and 
he  proceeds  to  the  generalization  "  that  we  may  always  find 
something  to  comfort  ourselves  from  and  to  set,  in  the  De- 
scription of  Good  and  Evil,  on  the  Credit  side  of  the 
Account."  The  something  may  indeed  be  "  negative,"  he 
admits,  as : — "  I  see  no  wild  Beasts  to  hurt  me."  Now,  all 
this  was  very  philosophic  of  the  "  Solitaire,"  but  we  shall 
want  more  of  our  poet  when  he  deals  with  life  in  general. 
If  his  view  is  merely  that,  on  subtracting  the  evil  from  the 
good,  there  is  a  balance  of  ten  per  cent,  in  favour  of  the  good, 
we  shall  feel  that  nine-tenths  of  life  is  without  meaning  for 
him,  and  we  shall  find  little  satisfaction  in  his  ten  per  cent, 
optimism.  Still  less  shall  we  be  content  if,  adopting  the 
debtor  and  creditor  plan,  he  forgets  to  make  his  subtraction. 
But  we  shall  prefer  some  other  method  that  will  give  back 
the  lost  nine-tenths — some  method  of  addition  rather  than 
subtraction — by  which  we  may  find  meaning  in  the  whole 
of  life.  It  will  be  harder  to  manage,  but  we  have  a  feeling 
that  we  cannot  be  content  with  less,  and  that  "  the  problem 
of  the  universe  "  is  after  all  to  make  this  addition. 

It  is  not  easy  to  add  up  happiness  and  misery,  but  the 
poet  must  do  it — and  know  what  he  is  doing.  He  must,  for 
example,  stand  with  Lear  upon  the  heath,  and  share  his 
mood. 

In  such  a  night  as  this  !  O  Regan,  Goneril ! 

Your  old  kind  father,  whose  frank  heart  gave  all, — 

O  !  that  way  madness  lies :  let  me  shun  that. 

But  the  poet  must  not  shun  it,  he  must  suffer  and  under- 
stand it,  as  he  enjoys  and  understands  the  happiness  of 
Perdita  among  her  flowers.  Brutus,  and  Sir  Toby  Belch, 
and  Timon — he  must  sympathize  with  them  all. 

Humani  nihil  a  me  alienum  puto. 


RESUTVIS  309 

When  he  has  surveyed  all,  suffered  ^all,  and  enjoyed  all ; 
when  he  has  been  through  "the  whole  tragedy  and  comedy 
of  life,"  1  he  will  be  able  to  make  his  addition,  for  he  will 
know  what  he  has  to  add  to  what.  And  then  perhaps  he 
will  not  be  in  so  great  a  hurry  as  people  of  less  experience 
to  say  what  is  good  and  what  is  bad,  and  to  make 
subtractions  and  strike  balances.  He  will  have  a  feeling 
that  heaven  does  not  make  quite  the  same  distinctions  as 
we  do,  and  that  the  universe  means  more  when  we  look  at 
it  from  that  point  of  view. 

I 

Seneca,  moralizing  to  Lucilius,  quotes  three  words  of  Virgil 
in  a  way  which  shows  at  once  how  the  poet's  phrase  had 
passed  into  common  speech,  and  how  his  thought  answered 
to  the  experience  of  his  readers.  "  You  will  feel,"  he  says, 
"  and  you  will  acknowledge  it,  that  of  all  these  dear  and 
desirable  things  none  is  of  use,  unless  you  fortify  yourself 
against  chance  and  all  it  involves  ;  unless  often  and  without 
complaint,  as  one  thing  after  another  is  lost,  you  quote 
to  yourself  the  poet's  dis  aliter  visum"  ^ 

Dis  aliter  visum  breaks  from  Aeneas'  lips  when  he  tells  of 
the  death  of  Rhipeus,  "  most  just,  most  careful  of  right  of  all 
men  in  Troy  " — 

Cadit  et  Rhipeus,  iustissimus  unus 

qui  fuit  in  Teucris  et  servantissimus  aequi — 

dis  aliter  visum  {A.  ii.  426-8). 

It  is  not  a  suggestion  of  any  divergence  of  view  as  to  the 
merits  of  Rhipeus.  It  is  rather  an  ejaculation  on  the  diffi- 
culty of  understanding  Heaven's  ways — "  Heaven's  will  be 
done!"  is  Conington's  rendering.^  Mortal  gratitude  would 
have  made  the  man  some  return,  but  the  gods  are  not 
grateful  to  men  for  their  piety.  Goodness  constitutes  no 
claim  to  be  exempt  from  the  common  lot,  and,  if  the  gods 
give    any  rewards    for   spiritual    excellence,    they   are    not 

^   Plato,  Philcbus,  50  B  tj  tov  jStou  ^v/iTrda-r)  Tpay(f)5ia  Kai  Kw/xcfdiq.. 
*  Seneca,  £p/.  98.  4.     He  goes  on  to  say  that  Dt  melius  would  be  carmen 
fortius  ac  iustius. 

'  Mr  Mackail  renders  it  :  "  The  gods'  ways  are  not  ours." 


3IO  VIRGIL 

paid  in  material  currency.  Aeneas  is  stating  in  a  vivid 
way  the  criticism  which  Adeimantus  in  the  Republic  brings 
upon  the  teaching  of  Hesiod  and  Homer.^ 

No  one,  again,  has  lived  a  better  or  more  useful  life  than 
Evander.  He  sends  his  son  off  to  the  war,  with  a  moving 
prayer  to  the  god  of  his  fathers  that  they  may  meet  again. 

At  vos  o  superi  et  divom  tu  maxime  rector 
luppiter  Arcadii,  quaeso,  miserescite  regis, 
et  patrias  audite  preces  ^  {A.  viii.  572-4). 

The  gallant  Pallas  encounters  Turnus  in  single  conflict,  and 
addresses  a  prayer  to  Hercules,  the  god  whose  cult  Evander 
had  been  celebrating  with  such  ceremony  a  day  or  two 
before.  But  it  is  in  vain.  Hercules,  we  are  told,  wept,  but 
they  were  idle  tears,  and  when  Jupiter  himself  sought 
to  console  him  his  words  only  emphasized  the  hapless  lot  of 
men.  "  Each  hath  his  own  appointed  day  ;  short  and 
irrecoverable  is  the  span  of  life  for  all ;  but  to  spread 
renown  by  deeds  is  the  task  of  valour.  Under  high  Troy 
town  many  and  many  a  god's  son  fell ;  nay,  mine  own  child 
Sarpedon  likewise  perished."  ^  Saying  so  much,  Jupiter 
turned  his  eyes  from  the  battlefield.  If  he  felt  for  men, 
his  pity  was  ineffectual.  Pallas  had  won  glory,  but 
it  did  not  keep  Evander's  heart  from  breaking — the 
gods  had  not  heard  his  prayers, 

nuUi  exaudita  deorum 
vota  precesque  meae^  i^A.  xi.  157). 

But  not  all  who  thus  fall  reach  glory.  Mimas,  the  friend 
of  Paris,  is  a  man  who  gains  none.  His  story  is  that  of 
many   a  common  man — pain,   exile,   death,    and    obscurity. 

^  Rep.  ii.  363.  Cf.  A.  C.  Bradley,  Shakespearean  Tragedy,  p.  326,  discussion 
on  the  death  of  Cordeha  in  King  Lear. 

-  "  But  you,  great  powers  above,  and  thou,  Jupiter,  mightiest  ruler  of  the  gods. 
pity,  I  beseech  you,  an  Arcadian  king,  and  hear  a  father's  prayers." 
3  A.  X.  467  : 

Slat  sua  ctiiqne  dies  :  breve  et  irreparabile  tetnpus 
omnibus  est  vitae  :  sedfamam  extendercfactis, 
hoc  virttUis  opus. 
*  "  Alas  for  those  my  vows  and  prayers,  that  found  no  audience  with  any  of 
the  gods  "  (Conington). 


RESULTS  311 

"  His  mother  Theano  bare  him  to  Amycus  on  the  same 
night  that  queen  Hecuba  bare  Paris,  the  torch  she  had 
carried  in  her  womb.  Paris  Hes  in  the  city  of  his  father  ; 
Mimas  on  the  shore  of  Laurentum,  a  stranger  in  a  strange 
land." 

Ignarum  Laurens  habet  ora  Mimanta  ^  {A.  x.  702-6). 

Born  on  one  night  in  one  town,  Paris  has  ruined  his  people 
and  Hes  with  his  ancestors  in  his  own  land ;  Mimas  falls 
hundreds  of  miles  away  on  a  foreign  shore.  But  there  is 
more  than  this,  for  the  Laurens  ora  is  the  land  of  promise, 
sought  for  seven  years  in  weary  travel  over  land  and  sea, 
and  found  at  last ;  and  now  the  journey  is  over,  the  goal  is 
reached,  and  all  the  land  of  promise  has  to  give  is  a  grave.^ 

There  is  perhaps  a  certain  consciousness  of  glory,  or  at 
least  of  right-doing,  in  a  life  of  quest  for  him  who  chooses 
it — but  for  those  who  do  not  choose  it  ?  In  the  fifth  book, 
while  the  men  celebrate  Anchises  with  game  and  race, 
Virgil  shows  us  the  women  sitting  apart  and  weeping  for 
him. 

Amissum  Anchisen  flebant, 

says  the  poet ;  but  the  reader  thinks  of  the  captive  women 
who  wailed  for  "  Patroclus  in  seeming,  but  every  one  in  her 
heart  for  her  own  calamity,"  ^  And  Virgil  tells  us  that  we 
are  right. 

Cunctaeque  profundum 
pontum  aspectabant  flentes. 

They  weep  as  they  look  at  the  sea  ;  and  yet,  as  Sainte-Beuve 
says,^  it  is  the  same  Sicilian  sea,  with  its  blue  horizon, 
which  the  little  shepherd  in  Theocritus  only  asks  to  see  for 
ever,  for  ever  to  have  before  his  eyes,  as  he  sits  on  the  rock 
with  his  shepherdess  in  his  arms,  while  his  flock  and  hers 

*  Dr  Henry  holds  with  Servius  that  igiiariim  means  that  he  is  killed  by  an 
unexpected  blow,  before  he  knows  it. 

*  Compare  the  death  of  Aeolus  :  domus  alta  suh  Ida,  Lyrnesi  domus  alta,  solo 
Laurente  sepulcrum  {A.  >.ii.  546) ;  and  the  Latins  killed  in  their  city  gates,  sed 
limine  in  ipso  moenibus  in  patriis  at  que  inter  tut  a  domoruvi  confixi  expirant 
aninias  {A.  xi.  88l). 

*  A.  V.  614.  Cf.  //.  xix.  301  (Tri  Si  ffrevdxovTO  yvvaiKes,  TldrpoKXov  irpd^affiv, 
c<puv  5'  ai^TWJ'  KTjSf'  iKaarr),  *  Etude  sur  Virgile,  p.  166, 


312  VIRGIL 

graze  round  them.^  "  But  exile  changes  the  colours."  So 
many  seas  they  have  crossed,  and  still  one  more,  is  the 
women's  thought. 

Per  mare  magnum 
Italiam  sequimur  fugientem  et  volvimur  undis  ^  (^A.  v.  628). 

It  is  a  picture  of  human  life  in  general — ever  some  un- 
known Italy  before  us,  but  the  nearer  we  come  to  it  the 
further  it  flies  from  us,  and  meanwhile  wave  and  storm- 
wind  have  us  at  their  mercy.     Once  more  for  what  ? 

That  we  find  in  the  eleventh  book.  We  seek  a  flying 
Italy  to  bury  the  dead  there.  The  episode  is  a  moving  one. 
First  we  see  the  hewing  of  timber  for  the  pyres,  a  vigorous 
picture  of  activity.  Then  the  day  breaks  which  is  appointed 
for  the  burial.  Dawn,  as  ever,  displays  her  genial  light,  but 
to  the  eyes  of  these  Trojans  it  is  not  welcome  ;  it  brings  back 
pain  and  trouble.  Yet  they  must  be  up  and  doing.  All 
along  the  winding  shore  stand  the  pyres,  and  on  them  they 
lay  their  dead.  The  fires  are  lit,  and  the  thick  smoke  of 
the  kindling  wood  rolls  in  clouds  to  the  sky.  They  wait  till 
the  pyres  blaze,  and  then  in  old  Roman  fashion,  with 
shout  and  trumpet,  they  ride  thrice  round  them.  Some 
throw  into  the  flames  the  spoils  the  dead  had  taken  ;  but 
some  of  the  fallen  had  taken  no  spoils  and  receive  only  their 
own  shields,  their  own  luckless  arms, 

ipsorum  clipeos  et  non  felicia  tela. 

Victims  are  slain  over  the  pyres,  and  then  the  ceremonies  are 

over  that  kept  the  mind  occupied.     Now  comes  the  waiting, 

and  the  mind  is  released  to  prey  upon   itself     "  Then  all 

along   the    shore    they   sit    and    gaze    while   their    friends 

are  burning,  and  watch  the  slow-consuming  pyres,  nor  can 

tear   themselves   away,   till    dewy  night   wheels   round    the 

sky,  set  with  its  burning  stars."  ^ 

The  picture  is  drawn  with  the  same  realism   which  has 

given   their   charm    to   the    Georgics,  but   which   here    with 

every    touch    deepens    the   impression    of  pain.     The   poet 

1  Theocritus,  8,  53-6. 

*  "Over  a  vast  sea  we  follow  a  flying  Italy  and  are  tossed  by  the  waves." 

^  A.  xi.  134-8;   182-202. 


RESULTS  313 

nakes  no  reflection,  except  perhaps  in  the  miseris  mortalibus, 
ind  that  is  traditional  and  from  the  past.^  It  is  doubtless, 
ilso,  not  without  purpose  that  he  uses  at  the  end  the  familiar 
phrase  of  his  great  predecessor  Ennius — 

caelum  stellis  ardentibus  aptum.^ 

The  contrast  gains  from  the  old  words.  Here  is  human 
sorrow — 

Infinite  passion,  and  the  pain 
Of  finite  hearts  that  yearn — 

set  before  us  in  these  silent  watchers,  brooding  beside  the 
dying  flames,  and  the  background  is  the  night  and  the 
eternal  and  passionless  stars.  It  is  Pindar's  old  thought 
again  — 

eirajuepoi'  Ti  Se  rtf  ',  tc  S   ou  T19  ',  o"/cmp  bvap 

avBpwiroi.^ 

It  is  not  only  what  we  have  to  bear  that  gives  life  its  pain. 
Doing  is  sometimes  worse  than  suffering.  Aeneas  has  to 
make  war  and  how  reluctantly  !  He  bids  Lausus  withdraw, 
but  Lausus  still  presses  on,  till  Aeneas  must  kill  him.  One 
blow  drives  the  sword  through  the  poor  gear  of  the  brave 
lad,  through  the  tunic  his  mother's  love  had  woven.  In  that 
instant  the  look  of  death  passes  over  the  boyish  face,  and 
the  older  man  groans  to  see  what  he  has  done.  It  is  with 
meaning  that  Virgil  here  calls  him  Anchisiades^ 

With  the  picture  of  burning  Troy  ever  in  his  mind  and 
memories  of  the  brutal  flames  {flammae  furentes)  that  leapt 

'  Servius  says,  from  Homer  ;  5etXo?crt  ^poToiai. 

*A  combination  of  two  forms,  for  Macrobius  tells  us  {Sat.  vi.  i.  9)  that 
Ennius  twice  used  caelum  stellis  Julgenlibus  aptum,  and  once  tiox  stellis  ardentibus 
apta.  Virgil  had  already  varied  it  in  A.  iv.  482  axeni  .  .  .  stellis  ardentibus 
aptum.  The  Iliad,  23,  217-25,  maybe  compared,  but  the  starry  night  is  not 
there. 

^Pindar,  Pythians,  8.  95,  "Creatures  of  a  day  !  what  are  we,  or  what  not? 
A  dream  of  a  shadow  is  man." 

*  A.  X.  S21 —         Atvero  ut  voUuin  vidit  morientis  et  ora, 
ora  vioais  Anchisiades  pallentia  niiris, 
iiigemtiit  miserans  graviter,  dextramque  tetendit, 
el  inentem  patriae  subiit  pietatis  imago. 
Contrast  the  satisfaction  of  the  young  Ascanius  in  killing  a  man  for  the  first 
time — A.  ix.  652 — and  cetera  parce  puer  hello.     See  p.  224. 


314  VIRGIL 


! 


and  exulted  amid  scenes  which  meant  everything  to  his^ 
heart,  Aeneas  is  hounded  by  fate  from  land  to  land,  andi 
when  he  reaches  Italy  it  is  the  tale  of  Troy  again.  He  has'^ 
to  fight,  to  kill  men — and  boys  even — to  make  womenn 
childless  and  children  fatherless.  Is  it  strange  that,  wheni 
among  the  shades  his  father  showed  him  souls  hastening  to.) 
reincarnation,  the  words  sprang  from  his  lips — 

O  pater,  anne  aliquas  ad  caelum  hinc  ire  putandum  est 

sublimes  animas  iterumque  ad  tarda  reverti 

corpora?  quae  lucis  miseris  tam  dira  cupido  ?^     {A.  vi.  719). 

He  has  had  enough,  too  much,  of  life:^  they  must  be 
pitiable  who  could  wish  a  second  life.  This  is  not  Achilles' 
thought — (3ovXoijULr]v  K  €7rapoupo9  eoov.  For  Achilles  life  in 
the  sun  is  good,  and  the  shadowy  existence  beyond  the 
grave  is  not  to  be  compared  with  it.  But  the  mood  which 
inspired  Ecclesiastes  was  by  now  familiar  to  the  western 
world — "  I  praised  the  dead  which  are  already  dead  more  \ 
than  the  living  which  are  yet  alive  " — and  it  sprang  from  the 
same  source — from  "  all  the  oppressions  that  are  done  under 
the  sun,  and  the  tears  of  such  as  were  oppressed." 

"  The  gods  in  Jove's  house  marvel  at  the  rage,  the  empty 
rage  of  both,"  Trojan  and  Italian,  "  and  all  the  agonizing  of  ] 
mortals."^  In  the  Iliad  the  gods  had  enjoyed  the>  sight; 
they  would  even  take  part  in  the  fray.  But  Virgil's  gods, 
like  philosophers,  look  at  it  sadly.  The  troubles  and  labours 
of  man  are  an  amazement  to  the  gods  themselves,  and  they 
are  after  all  "  a  striving  after  wind."  The  gods  pity  man, 
but  their  pity  is  idle  as  his  pain — fruitless  and  ineffectual.^ 

1  "  O  my  father  !  and  are  there,  and  must  we  believe  it,"  he  said, 

"  Spirits  that  fly  once  more  to  the  sunlight  back  from  the  dead  ? 
Souls  that  anew  to  the  body  return  and  the  fetters  of  clay  ? 
Can  there  be  any  who  long  for  the  light  as  blindly  as  they  ?  " 

(Bowen). 

"^  Cf.  King  Lear  v.  3,  304,  "  And  my  poor  fool  is  hanged  !     No,  no,  no  life  ! " 

*  A.  X.  758. 

*  Cf.  Hugo  von  Trimberg  (cited  by  Carlyle,  Essay  on  Early  German 
Literature).  "  God  might  well  laugh,  could  it  be,  to  see  his  mannikins  live  so 
wondrously  on  this  earth  ;  two  of  them  will  take  to  fighting,  and  nowise  let  it 
alone  ;  nothing  serves  but  with  two  long  spears  they  must  ride  and  stick  at  one 


The 


a  qui 
the 

it 
tno': 

sna 

tttO 

to 
lu( 
M 
th 
le 


RESULTS  315 

to  Ijl     The    problem,    it    will    be    agreed,    is    fairly   adequately 
presented  by  Virgil.     Has  he  a  solution  for  it  ? 


II 

When  Virgil  wrote  his  description  of  the  watchers  by  the 
dying  flames  of  the  funeral  pyres,  he  was  raising  once  more 
a  question  which  his  master  Lucretius  had  settled.  One  of 
the  most  striking  passages  of  the  De  Reruin  Natura  deals 
with  death  and  bereavement.  "  Now  no  more,"  say  the 
mourners,  "  shall  thy  house  give  thee  glad  welcome,  nor  a 
most  virtuous  wife  and  sweet  children  run  to  be  the  first  to 
snatch  kisses  and  touch  thy  heart  with  a  silent  joy.  No 
''ieif  more  mayst  thou  be  prosperous  in  thy  doings,  a  safeguard 
■  i'l  to  thine  own.  One  disastrous  day  has  taken  from  thee, 
luckless  man,  in  luckless  wise  all  the  many  prizes  of  life." 
"  We,  with  a  sorro^^  that  would  not  be  sated,  have  wept  for 
:wii|  thee  as  on  the  hateful  pyre  thou  didst  turn  to  ash,  and  no 
length  of  days  shall  pluck  everlasting  sorrow  from  our 
heart."  ^  That  is  a  fair  presentment  of  the  question  of 
human  sorrow. 

The  answer  of  Lucretius  is  that  such  feelings  are  largely 
irrational.  Reflect,  he  says,  that  if  the  dead  shall  see 
no  more  his  wife  or  child,  it  is  as  true  that  "  now  no  longer 
does  any  desire  for  them  remain  to  him  " ;  sunk  in  the  deep 
sleep  of  death,  so  shall  he  continue  for  all  time,  free  from  all 
pain  and  grief  "  What,"  he  asks,  "  is  there  so  passing  bitter, 
if  it  come  in  the  end  to  sleep  and  rest  ? " — particularly 
when,  as  he  states,  in  that  sleep  of  death  no  dreams  will 
come. 

Finally,  he  pictures  Nature  suddenly  uttering  a  voice  and 
herself  rallying  us.  "  What  hast  thou,  O  mortal,  so  much  at 
heart  to  yield  to  this  excess  of  sorrow  ?  Why  moan  and 
bewail  death  ?  For  say  thy  life  past  and  gone  has  been 
welcome   to    thee,    and    thy    blessings   have   not    all,   as   if 

p-iiother :  greatly  to  their  hurt  ;  for  when  one  is  by  the  other  skewered  through 
the  bowels  or  through  the    weasand,  he  hath   small   profit   thereby.     But  who 
forced    them    to   such    straits  ? "     Carlyle's    own    rendering    of  this   in   Sartor 
Resarttis  will  be  remembered. 
1   Lucr.  iii.  894-9 ;  906-9. 


3i6  VIRGIL 

poured    into   a   leaky   vessel,   run   through    and    been   lost  | 
without  avail  ;  why  not  then  take  thy  departure  as  a  guest  J 
who  has  had  his  fill  of  life  {iit  plenus  vitae  conviva)  ?  .  ,  .  ' 
There  is  nothing    more   that    I    can  contrive  and    discover 
for  thee  to  give  thee  pleasure."     Life,  he  says,  is  not  given 
us  in  fee-simple,  we  have  it  only  in  usufruct — 

Vitaque  mancipio  nulli  datur,  omnibus  usu  (Lucr.  iii.  971). 

Our  substance  is  needed  for  other  beings.^  Why  not  accept 
the  fact  quietly  ?  "  Is  there  aught  that  looks  appalling  in 
death,  aught  that  wears  an  aspect  of  gloom  ?  is  it  not  more 
untroubled  than  any  sleep  ?  " 

So  sounds  the  voice  of  Nature  to  Lucretius,  but  eager 
spirits  are  not  always  the  best  listeners.  Much  as  Lucretius 
heard  of  what  Nature  had  to  say,  there  was  a  word  which  he 
did  not  notice,  but  which  caught  his  pupil's  ear — 

Insatiabiliter  deflevimus,  aeternumque 

nulla  dies  nobis  maerorem  e  pectore  demet  ^  (Lucr.  iii.  907). 

The  master  had  indeed  heard  the  sentence  and  triumphantly 
brushed  it  aside  ;  it  was  merely  the  voice  of  man,  irrational 
man.  The  pupil  was  not  so  sure ;  he  could  not  rid  himself 
of  the  feeling  that  Nature  speaks  in  man  as  well  as  else- 
where— that  a  broken  heart  is  as  distinctly  a  voice  of  Nature 
as  any  syllogism.  To  him  Nature  does  not  argue  so  quickly 
and  so  logically — 

gives  birth 

To  no  impatient  or  fallacious  hopes, 

No  heat  of  passion  or  excessive  zeal, 

No  vain  conceits ;  provokes  to  no  quick  turns 

Of  self-applauding  intellect.^ 

For  Virgil,  as  for  the  modern  poet, 

the  lonely  roads 
Were  open  schools  in  which  I  daily  read 

^  For  a  Stoic  view  of  the  resolution  of  man  et's  rd  0iXa  /cat  <jv^-^ivr\,  ei'y  ret 
CTOix^la.,  see  Epictetus  (Z).  iii.  13),  though  he  adds  rather  curiously  ito-vro.  Qeiav 
/xecrToL  Kai  8aifj.6vu}V. 

'^  "  Insatiably  we  wept ;  and  that  everlasting  sorrow  no  time  shall  take  from 
our  heart."  *  See  the  Prelude,  bk.  xiii. 


RESULTS  317 

With  most  delight  the  passions  of  mankind, 
Whether  by  words,  looks,  sighs,  or  tears,  revealed  ; 
There  saw  into  the  depths  of  human  souls, 
Souls  that  appear  to  have  no  depth  at  all 
To  careless  eyes.^ 

His  chosen  theme  being 

No  other  than  the  very  heart  of  man,i 
from  long  study  of  it  he  holds  that 

From  Nature  doth  emotion  come.^ 

Thus  it  came  about  that  the  very  utterance,  which 
Lucretius  invoked  this  dramatic  interference  of  Nature 
to  refute,  became  for  Virgil,  above  all  other  voices.  Nature's 
own.  For  when  he  "  saw  into  the  depth  of  human  souls " 
he  realized  that  4;he  deepest  and  most  permanent  thing 
there  is  love,  and  listening  to  this,  as  to  the  voice  of  Nature, 
he  heard  again  in  clearer  and  clearer  tone,  with  deepening 
intensity  and  passion,  the  question,  which  for  Lucretius 
v/as  hardly  a  question  at  all— what  is  the  meaning  of  human 

sorrow  ? 

The  same  voice  of  Nature  invalidated  for  him  much  of 
the  teaching  of  the  other  great  philosophic  school,  to  which 
he  obviously  leaned  in  later  life.  The  Stoic  2  admitted  that 
it  was  natural  to  long  for  the  lost  friend,  but  in  moderation. 
He  pointed  out  to  the  weeping  mother  the  short  and  quiet 
grief  of  the  cow;^  he  suggested  that  such  grief  as  hers 
was  "rather  feminine";  that  the  barbarian  felt  it  more 
keenly  than  the  man  of  culture  ;  that  time  would  mend  it : 
«  What  harm  does  it  do  to  whisper  to  yourself,  as  you  kiss 
your  child,  'To-morrow  you  will  die'.?"*     "I  knew,"  said 

1  See  the  Prelude,  bk.  xiii. 

«  Seneca,  de  Consolatione,   7,  1-3.     At  enim  naiurale  desiderium  suorum  est. 
Quis  negat,  qiiavidiu  modicum  est?  .   .   .  There  is,  of  course,  a  certain  value  in 

al!  this. 

3    Vaccarum  uiio  die  altcrove  mugitus  auditur.     But  contrast  Lucr.  u.  352. 

«  Epictetus  D.  iii.   24.     Cf.  D.  iii.   18,  and  Manual  14,  16.      "If you  weep 
with  a  friend,  let  it  be  /xexP'  ^<W<»'.  look  to  it  A  ««'  ?<Tw^ei'  crrevd^Tys. " 


318  VIRGIL 

Anaxagoras,'  "that  I  had  not  begotten  an  immortal." 2 
In  fact  Stoic  and  Epicurean  are  at  one  in  their  practical 
advice,  for  if  the  pleasure  of  life  is  to  be  unruifled,  or  if 
the  soul  is  to  live  in  the  universal  and  eternal,  it  is 
better  without  the  temporary  connexions  of  state  and 
family ;  on  the  whole,  insensibility  is  best.  But  Nature 
has  refused  us  this  gift — Nature,  as  to  whom,  according 
to  Pliny,^  we  can  never  quite  decide  whether  she  is 
mother  or  step-mother. 

Starting  from  the  obvious,  our  moral  philosophers  have  i 
led  us  on  amiably  and  logically,  till  they  ask  us  to  affirm  ' 
that  the  ideal  of  humanity  is  virtually  inhumanity.*  It 
is  here  that  the  poets  intervene.  They  may  theorize  too,  ] 
but  they  have  an  instinct  to  keep  "  in  company  with  flesh  i 
and  blood."     They  have  divined 

The  value  and  significance  of  ilesh, 

and  tbey  come  to  the  aid  of  the  philosophers,  when  they 
grow  abstract.  The  deep  indebtedness  of  poetry  to 
philosophy,  despite  the  ancient  quarrel,  must  not  obscure 
for  us  the  fact  that  the  obligations  are  not  all  on  one  side. 
Long  ago  Euripides  had  put  into  the  mouth  of  one  of 
the  very  unhappiest  of  mothers  words  true  to  human 
experience,  truer  far  than  Stoic  or  Epicurean  taught  in 
theory. 

Tracri  0   avupooiroL^  ap   tjv 
'4^V)(ri  T€Kv  '  b(TTi<i  6   aiiT  aireipo?  mu  xfreyei, 
}j<Tcrov  fxev  aXyet,  Svcttv^wv  (5    evSaifxovel.^ 

Though  Virgil  does  not  make  an  aphorism  of  it,  his  poetry 

^  The  ascription  is  doubtful,  as  the  story  is  also  told  of  Solon  and  Xenophon. 
See  Epictetus  Z>.  iii.  24  (near  end) ;  Seneca  Cons,  ad  Pol.  30  ;  Cic.  Tusc.  iii.  13  ; 
Plutarch,  Cons,  ad  ApoU.  118  D. 

*  The  magnificent  treatment  of  this  in  Tristram  Shandy  is  only  too  just. 
^  Pliny,  N.  H.  vii.  i  parens  melior  homini  an  (ristior  noverca. 

■*  Cf.  the  revolt  of  Plutarch  (_Cons.  ad  A  poll.  102  B)  against  t7]v  dypLov  Kal 
OKXripav  awddeiav,  citing  (102  D)  Grantor  to  yap  dvudwov  tovt  ovk  dvev  /xeydXwv 
iyylverai  t<^  dvdpdiiK^'     TeOripiQiadaL  yap  elKos  ^Ket  /xii>  awfia  toiovtov  ivraiida  8e 

*  Andromache,  418.  "  Children  after  all  are  the  soul  of  life  ;  and  as  for  those 
who  know  them  not  and  doubt  of  them,  their  troubles  may  be  less,  but  their 
very  happiness  is  misfortune." 


fo'- 


RESULTS  319 

eaffirms   this   utterance   of  experience.     We   may   wonder 
bout    his   philosophy   at   times — he    owns   himself  in    the 
leorgics   that   he   is  not  great   or   original   as   a  thinker — 
it ;,  l)ut  he  does  the  proper  work  of  a  poet  in  calling  us  back 
J5  Irom  the  barren  ways  of  abstract  dogma  to  "the  universal 
tut;  |ieart." 

It  was  thus  that  Wordsworth,  shocked  at  the  excesses 
nto  which  abstract  political  speculation  led  the  men  of  the 
French  Revolution,  turned  back  to  Nature,  and,  looking  into 
'  the  depth  of  human  souls,"  did  not  despair  of  the  greater 
Republic — the  "  dear  city  of  Zeus."  Theories  are  very 
fascinating,  we  all  know,  but  the  poet  "  rejoices  more  in  the 
spirit  of  life  that  is  in  him."  ^  Hence  it  comes  that  Virgil 
sees  more  truly  than  Stoic  or  Epicurean,  and  he  has  done 
genuine  service  in  bringing  home  to  us  the  fact  that  their 
solutions  of  the  question  of  human  sorrow  were  not  solutions 
at  all.  Whatever  answer  he  may  himself  offer,  he  has  at 
least  advanced  matters  by  making  it  clear  that  the  question 
is  no  accidental  or  easy  one,  no  side  issue,  but  that  it  goes  to 
the  very  depth  of  man's  being  and  is  an  integral  element  of 
the  problem  of  the  universe.^ 


Ill 

In  the  Georgics,  as  we  have  seen,  Virgil  faced  the  question 
of  man's  dealings  with  Nature,  and  he  found  that  the  under- 
lying purpose  of  Jove  had  justified  itself.  The  name  Jove 
was  perhaps  traditional,  and  must  not  be  pressed,  but  the 
main  drift  of  the  poem  is  that  the  universe,  so  far  as  it 
concerns  the  farmer,  is  intelligible,  and  the  mind  behind  it 
not  unfriendly.  The  life  of  the  farm  is  hard,  but  man's  life 
has  always  been  hard  since  the  beginning,  and  it  is  to  this 
hardness  that  we  owe  everything.  The  arts  of  life  spring 
from  it,  and  the  sciences  too — all  our  knowledge  of  earth  and 
its  creatures  and  their  ways,  and  our  knowledge  of  the  sky 
and  the  stars.     Need  has  brought  us  into  touch  with  all  our 

*  Preface  to  Lyrical  Ballads,  1 800. 

-  Dr  Henry  translates  sunt  lacrimae  rerum  in  this  sense — "  Tears  belong  to 
the  constitution  of  Nature." 


320  VIRGIL 

environment  and   established  the  greatness  and  the  worth 
of  man. 

Labor  omnia  vincit 
improbus  et  duris  urgens  in  rebus  egestas  ^  {G.  i.  145). 

Mankind,  like  the  Happy  Warrior,  has  "  turned  necessity  to 
glorious  gain."  ^ 

Man  has  emerged  from  his  long  contest  with  necessity 
stronger  and  better.  In  the  Aeneid  vjq  have  a  further  stage 
of  his  history.  He  is  applying  the  faculties  which  he  has 
acquired  in  a  higher  and  harder  warfare.  He  has  now  to 
battle  not  with  hunger,  or  blight  and  weeds,  but  with  other 
men  and  with  himself  in  his  attempt  to  lift  the  race  higher 
yet.  Far  in  the  future  he  divines  a  happiness  for  coming 
generations  which  depends  in  measure  upon  his  own  moral 
quality.  It  is  represented  that  the  gods  assure  him  of  this, 
but  as  a  rule  Aeneas  seems  to  act,  as  we  all  act,  more  upon 
the  instinctive  feeling  for  right  than  upon  external  divine 
command.  The  enemy  is  nominally  Juno ;  more  really 
it  is  inward  weakness.  Juno,  Aeolus,  Turnus,  and  others 
throw  difficulties  in  the  way,  but  the  real  fight  is  within. 
It  is  the  stuggle  to  keep  facing  in  the  right  direction,  to 
think  first  of  kin  and  country,  and  to  overcome  every  chance 
by  endurance. 

Quidquid  erit  superanda  omnis  fortuna  ferendo  est  ^ 

{A.  V.  710). 

Aeneas  has  seen  Troy  burning ;  he  has  been  "  much 
battered  to  and  fro  on  land  and  sea  " ;  but  he  never  ceases 
to  look  toward  his  goal — 

tendimus  in  Latium  {A.  i.  205). 

^  "So  toil  conquered  the  world,  relentless  toil,  and  Want  that  grinds  in 
adversity''  (Conington). 

*  The  same  idea  is  revived  by  Claudian  in  his  Rape  of  Prozerpine  as  the  key- 
note to  his  story.     See  the  speech  of  Jove,  iil  18-65,  modelled  after  Virgil — 

Quod  dissuasor  homsti 
luxus  et  humanas  oblimat  copia  mentes, 
frrcnjocet  ut  se:;nes  animos  rerumque  remotas 
ingeniosa  via:  paulaiim  exploret  egestas, 
iitqui  aries  pariat  soller/ia,  nutriat  usus. 

*  "  Whatever  it  be,  every  chance  must  be  overcome  by  bearing  it." 


RESULTS 


321 


With  all  his  reverses  and  despondencies,  he  may  fairly  be 
said  to  triumph  over  life  ;  he  never  surrenders.  There  is 
wavering  in  Virgil's  portrait  of  him,  due,  as  we  have  seen, 
to  sensitiveness  to  the  claims  of  the  Homeric  tradition,  but 
it  is  clear  enough  tliat  Virgil  conceived  his  character  as 
of  the  true  "  Tyrtaean  "  strain.  His  story  should  ''  arm  men 
with  courage  to  undergo  the  conflicts  of  life,"  and  it  does. 

It  is  not  here  a  fair  objection  to  urge  that  the  connexion 
between  Aeneas  and  Rome  is  a  mechanical  one.     There  are 
certainly  traces    of  the  mechanical    in    the  story,  but  it  is 
far  nearer  the  truth  to  say  that  Virgil  is  making  an  honest 
attempt  to  present  the  type  of  manhood  that  made  Rome. 
Legend — one    legend — said    that    Aeneas    founded    Rome  ; 
then  what  sort  of  man  was  he.?     What  sort  of  people  did 
he   leave  behind  him  ?     He    is   cast    in    their   mould.     The 
necessities   of    poetic    treatment    require   that    he   shall    be 
individualized,    and    this    is   done.       Troy    comes    into    the 
story  of  Aeneas,  and  this,  for  one  thing,  differentiates  him 
from  other  Romans.     The  man  who  had  been  through  the 
siege  and  the  fall  of  Troy  would  not  be  as  other  men.     If 
he  were  not  hardened  by  it,  he  must  have    been    ripened, 
and  it  is  so  with  Aeneas.     He  has  far  more  sensibility  than 
the  average  Roman  ;  the  truth  is,  that  there  is  a  good  deal 
of  Virgil    in   him.     Now  while   all  a  man  does  will  show, 
in  some  way  or  other,  all  that  he  is,  and  the   whole   man 
is  apt  to  be  revealed,  more  or  less,  in  every  act,  we  can 
separate   out   in   the   character   of  Aeneas  certain    features 
which  he  has  in  common  with  all  the  great  men  of  Rome 
whose  names  are  mentioned  in  the  poem  as  representative 
of  the  Roman  people.     And  if  we  are  too  cautious  or  too 
prosaic  to  say  that  Aeneas  made  Rome,  and  prefer  to  say 
that   certain    other    heroes    and    a   great    many   "  common 
people"  made  her,  we  shall  still  find  on  examination  that, 
whoever  it  was  who  did  the  work,  it  was  done  in  exactly 
the  spirit  of  Virgil's  Aeneas — by  men  who  have  essentially 
the  same  character,  though  they  may  lack  the   dijft-rcutiae 
which  make  him  Aeneas  and  have  others  of  their  own. 

The  outcome  of  the  poem,  then,  is  that  character  of  this 
type  does  not  fail  of  effect  and  achievement.     "  They  little 


322  VIRGIL 

suspect,"  said  Goethe  of  some  people,  "  what  an  inaccessible 
stronghold  that  man  possesses  who  is  always  in  earnest  with 
him.self  and  the  things  around  him."  The  implication  of 
the  Aeneid  is  the  same.  The  Romans  are  rerum  domini 
in  virtue  of  this  character.  The  farmer  in  the  Georgics 
had  got  his  reward  from  iustissima  tellus  by  no  other  magic. 
How  many  heroes  and  worthies  of  Roman  history  are  named 
in  the  Aeneid,  and  did  any  of  them  ever  attain  greatness — 
let  us  be  careful  to  give  the  word  Virgil's  meaning — by  any 
other  arts }  Modern  readers  complain  of  the  part  played 
by  Augustus  in  the  poem,  really  judging  him  from  the 
standpoint  of  Tacitus ;  but  for  Virgil,  who  died  a  whole 
generation  before  Augustus,  the  main  thing  in  the  Em- 
peror's career  is  the  fact  that  he  had  represented  the  old 
Roman  character  in  the  world,  and  once  more  conquered 
the  world  in  virtue  of  it.  Augustus  had  taken  thought 
for  his  country  and  the  empire,  and  had  been  in  earnest, 
as  conspicuously  as  Antony  had  trifled  about  everything 
but  personal  pleasure ;  and  history's  verdict,  given  at 
Actium,  was  profoundly  just. 

It  has,  however,  been  suggested  that  Virgil  does  not 
make  in  the  Aeneid  such  prophecies  of  the  Golden  Age 
as  he  made  in  the  fourth  Eclogue.  It  might  be  a  sound 
reply  to  say  that  the  poet  who  wrote  the  hymn  (is  it  any- 
thing else  ?)  to  Labor  improbus  in  the  Georgics  will  hardly 
conceive  of  so  great  a  reversal  of  human  history  as  a  millen- 
nium resplendent  with  purple  and  saffron  rams.^  The 
Eclogue  is,  in  spite  of  the  early  Church,  much  more  a  poetic 
exercise  than  a  prophecy  of  the  Messiah.  It  must,  however, 
be  owned  that  as  men  grow  older  they  become  less  and  less 
ready  to  predict  speedy  returns  of  either  golden  ages  or 
millenniums,  and  Virgil  will  prophesy  no  more  than  the 
reign  of  Peace.  That  is  the  only  golden  age  he  can  now 
conceive.^ 

Aspera  tum  positis  mitescent  secula  bellis  ^  (^A.  i.  291). 

^  E.  iv.  43 —         Ipse  sed  in  pratis  aries  iaiit  suave  rubenti 

jiM?-iie,  ia»i  croceo  niutabit  vellera  luto,  &c. 
2  Cf.  A.  vi.   792. 
8  "  War  shall  cease  and  harsh  times  grow  gentle." 


RESULTS  323 

^sibii  fhe  ancients  knew  much  less  than  we  know  of  anthro- 
'^''^  pology  and  history,  and  they  did  not  realize  in  full  the 
" ''  yrandeur  and  promise  of  mankind's  long  progress.  All 
3ur  speculation,  moreover,  on  man  and  his  destiny  is  illu- 
mined by  some  idea  of  evolution,^  and  our  prevailing  feeling 
Iis  that  the  race  has  far  more  triumphs  before  it  than  we 
can  imagine.  Hence  Wordsworth  can  bid  "the  most  un- 
tiappiest  man  of  men  "  take  comfort  in  "  man's  unconquerable 
mind."  Virgil  naturally  cannot  go  nearly  so  far,  but  he 
has  gone  further,  I  think,  than  any  poet  before  him  in  this 
direction,  when  he  emphasizes,  as  he  does,  the  steady  pro- 
gress of  the  past.  He  is  more  silent  as  to  the  future,  as  men 
are  apt  to  be  who  know  life  deeply.  Yet,  whatever  we  may 
take  to  be  the  poet's  personal  inference  from  his  facts,  if  we 
fairly  grasp  those  facts,  we  at  least  shall  suck  no  melancholy 
from  the  Georgios  and  the  Aeneid.  We  shall  find  in  them 
true  pictures  of  man's  history,  and  if  the  mood,  to  which  the 
poet  brings  us,  is  one  of  pensive  and  chastened  thought,  it 
will  yet  be  one  of  hope  for  the  race. 


IV 

But  what  has  Virgil  to  say  of  the  individual  ?  It  is, 
comparatively,  easy  to  be  hopeful  for  mankind  in  a  general 
way.  The  Stoic,  it  has  been  said,  lived  in  the  best  of  all 
possible  worlds,  in  which,  however,  everything  was  a 
necessary  evil.^  The  poet  has  to  avoid  such  a  conclusion, 
if  his  poetry  is  to  be  reconciling.  For  him,  if  for  no  one 
else,  universal  truths  must  prove  true  in  particular  cases ; 
he  cannot  accept  a  general  statement  which  he  finds  false  in 
every  individual  application  of  it.  If  a  certain  temper  or 
attitude  of  mind  is   satisfactory  for   the   race   at   large,   as 

1  There  is  a  danger  of  careless  thinking  when  we  speak  of  evolution — those  of 
us  who  are  not  men  of  science,  so  the  reader,  I  hope,  will  not  press  the  word  too 
hard. 

'  The  epigram  is  borrowed  by  Professor  Caird  from  Mr  F.  H.  Bradley  for  the 
Stoics.  Plutarch  {de  repugnantiis  Stokorum  1048  F)  anticipated  the  criticism  : 
"  all  men  are  mad,  bad  and  sad,  the  Stoics  say  ;  dra  -rrpofoiq.  deQv  dt.oi.Kei(rdai  ret 
Kud'  T]/xd.s  of'Tws  adXius  irpaTTovras ;  could  it  be  worse  if  the  gods  hated  us?  could 
we  not  quote  (Eur.  //.  F.    1245)  7^ju  .•  KaKi2y  Stj  kojuk^t  i<xd'  Hirov  reOy  ?" 


324  VIRGIL 

Virgil  sees,  it  should  be  so  for  the  individual  man.  The 
question  for  the  poet,  in  short,  is  the  question  of  Plato's 
Republic}  whether  righteousness  in  itself  and  by  itself  is 
(in  popular  phrase),  "  worth  while." 

There  will  always  be  strong  support  (at  least,  strong 
numerical  support)  for  the  view  advanced  by  some  of  Plato's 
friends  that  righteousness  "  pays  "  better  than  unrighteous- 
ness,— frequently,  they  will  say,  even  in  this  world,  and  most 
certainly  in  the  next.  It  may  be  said  that  Virgil  represents 
this  view  in  his  picture  of  Elysium,  and  that  he  holds  out  to 
the  righteous  the  hope  of  happy  groves,  with  larger  air  and 
purer  light,  the  gymnasium  and  the  dance  and  the  songs  of 
Orpheus.  This  is  true,  but  these  things  are  no  more  to  be 
taken  literally  in  the  Aeneid  than,  in  the  Rhythm  of  St 
Bernard,  the  milk  and  honey  of  the  golden  Jerusalem, 

The  song  of  them  that  triumph, 
The  shout  of  them  that  feast. 

The  whole  of  Virgil's  Hades  is  animated  by  the  strenuous 
mind,  "  always  in  earnest  with  itself  and  the  things  around 
it."     While  he  avails   himself,   as    usage   perhaps    required,   1 
of  the  traditional  symbols  of  damnation,  and  extends  their 
application    from    Titanic   sinners    against  Jupiter   to   com- 
monplace sinners  against  humanity,  there  is  one  place  where    | 
his   thought    is    unveiled    without    symbol.     He   speaks   of 
those  who  have  made  their  own  quietus  ;  innocent  people — 
he  gives  them  credit  for  that — but  people  who  quailed,  who 
shirked  their  task,  and  for  them  the  only  punishment  is  the    | 
sense  of  failure —  i 

quam  vellent  aethere  in  alto 
nunc  et  pauperiem  et  duros  perferre  labores  ^  (^A.  vi.  436). 

'  Rep.  363  A,  Criticism  of  people  ovk  aiiro  SiKaioavvrju  iiraivouvTes  dXXd.  xas  air' 
avrr/s  evooKifJ.'qcreLS, 

*  "  How  gladly  would  they  choose  now  in  the  air  above  to  bear  to  the  end 
poverty  and  hard  toil."     Cf.  Browning,  Statue  and  the  Bust — 

Let  a  man  contend  to  the  uttermost 

For  his  life's  set  prize,  be  it  what  it  will  ! 

The  counter  our  lovers  staked  was  lost 

As  surely  as  if  it  were  lawful  coin  : 

And  the  sin  I  impute  to  each  frustrate  ghost 

Was — the  unlit  lamp  and  the  ungirt  loin. 


RESULTS  325 

This  is  a  hint  of  Virgil's  mind.  He  leaves  it  to  moralists 
and  minor  poets  to  tell  us  that  virtue  is  its  own  reward — 

ipsa  quidem  virtus  pretium  sibi  * — 

the  most  discouraging  platitude  which  ever  disguised  the 
feeling  that  virtue  has  no  reward  at  all.  For,  as  a  rule,  he 
prefers  to  let  his  thoughts  "  slide  into  the  mind  of  the  reader 
while  he  is  imagining  no  such  matter,"  ^  and  it  is  from  the 
A enet'd  as  a  whole  that  we  shall  best  learn  what  he  means. 
Whatever  his  view  of  them  may  be,  it  will  not  be  in  Hades 
only  that  virtue  and  vice  reveal  their  essential  nature,  for 
a  great  poet  will  not  falsify  our  experience  and  our  standards 
by  dividing  life  in  two  in  so  arbitrary  a  way. 

Let  us,  however,  begin  with  two  more  or  less  definite 
statements.  The  old  Aletes,  in  thanking  Nisus  and  Euryalus 
for  their  valour,  uses  these  words  : 

quae  vobis,  quae  digna,  viri,  pro  laudibus  istis 
praemia  posse  rear  solvi  ?  pulcherrima  primum 
di  moresque  dabunt  vestri  ^  {A.  ix.  252). 

Aeneas,  in  a  similar  strain,  says  to  Dido — 

Di  tibi  (siqua  pios  respectant  numina,  siquid 
usquam  iustitia  est  et  mens  sibi  conscia  recti) 
praemia  digna  ferant  ^  (A.  i.  607). 

Each  of  these  utterances  has  the  spontaneity  which  the 
dramatic  situation  requires.  As  in  popular  speech,  there 
is  a  slight  and  very  natural  confusion — do  the  gods  give 
rewards  to  the  good,  or  is  the  real  worth  of  goodness  to  be 

*  Claudian,  Paneg.  Manl.  Theod.  i.  It  was  not  his  own  invention — Virtutum 
omnium  pretium  in  ipsis  est,  wrote  Seneca,  Ep.  8l.  19. 

*  Lamb's  phrase  in  a  letter  to  Wordsworth,  Jan.  1 801,  criticizing  The  Old 
Cumberland  Beggar. 

^  "  What  guerdons,  gallant  men,  what  can  I  fancy  of  worth  enough  to  pay  you 
for  glories  like  these  ?  first  and  richest  will  be  the  praise  of  heaven  and  your  own 
hearts"  (Conington). 

*  "May  the  gods — if  there  are  powers  that  regard  the  pious,  if  justice  and 
conscious  rectitude  count  for  aught  anywhere  on  earth — may  they  give  you  the 
reward  you  merit  ! "  (Conington).  Editors  dispute  whether  to  read  iustitia  or 
iuslitiae.  Heyne,  Henry,  Conington,  Forbiger,  and  Ribbeck  are  for  the  former. 
The  latter  seems  prosaic,  and  indeed  on  a  lower  moral  plane. 


I 


326  VIRGIL 

found  in  character  and  conscience  ?  The  course  of  the  story 
offers  some  comment  upon  this.  In  the  first  case,  Nisus  and 
Euryalus  are  killed  within  twelve  hours  ;  in  the  other,  the 
gods,  so  far  from  rewarding  Dido,  entangle  her  in  an  affection 
which  brings  upon  her  untold  misery  and  death.  It  is  plain 
that  the  first  theory,  that  of  rewards  of  goodness,  has  failed, 
and  if  we  trust  popular  standards  we  shall  be  at  a  loss. 

But  if  the  poet  habitually  shows  us  men  and  women 
living  strenuous  lives,  doing  brave  deeds,  giving  themselves 
up  for  love  of  child  and  father  and  people,  and  content  to 
get  no  visible  or  tangible  rewards,  preferring  to  do  the 
service,  whatever  comes  of  it — has  he  not  indicated  to  us 
where  we  should  look  for  our  explanation  of  things  }  Why 
does  Lausus  rescue  his  father  at  the  cost  of  what  must  be 
certain  death  for  himself }  What  reward  is  in  his  mind  1 
What  takes  Aeneas  over  land  and  sea  ?  Is  it  really  hope 
of  ease — or  praise?  Are  high  deeds  ever  done  for  such 
motives?  Is  not  the  poet  tacitly  revealing  his  own  thought 
that  rewards  and  punishments  are  hardly  pertinent  in  this 
case  ;  that  the  good  man,  hero  in  battle  or  ploughman  in 
the  field,  does  right  because  it  is  right  and  because  he  "  cannot 
help  it "  .''  It  is  "  in  him  "  to  do  it,  and  do  it  he  will — "  though 
it  rains  duke  Georges  " — though,  like  Lausus,  he  knows  he 
will  be  killed  upon  the  spot — though  Juno's  unrelenting  hate 
move  earth  and  heaven  and  hell  against  him.  Of  course, 
Virgil  has  not  said  all  this  explicitly  ;  but  is  it  not  the 
implicit  meaning  of  his  story  of  life  on  farm  and  on  the  sea 
and  in  war,  that  righteousness  in  itself  and  by  itself  is  worth 
everything  else  ? 

Character,  then,  in  Virgil's  view,  means  achievement  in 
the  long  run  for  the  race  and  for  the  individual,  but,  quite 
apart  from  results,  character  is  achievement  in  itself,  and 
the  righteous  man  does  not  look  for  rewards  for  righteous- 
ness. But  we  must  come  back  to  what  is  perhaps  the 
hardest  case  of  all.  What  has  Virgil  to  say  to  the  mourners 
beside  the  funeral  pyre  ? 

We  have  seen  how  Seneca  advised  moderation  in  grief — 
a  wise  enough  counsel,  if  it  did  not  mean  the  cramping  and 
narrowing  of  affection,  the  most  obvious  way  in  which  to  be 


RESULTS  327 

independent  of  accident.  Lucretius,  on  the  other  hand, 
urged  that  the  dead  really  need  no  commiseration  ;  why 
mourn  for  those  who  are  not  to  be  pitied  ? 

To  Lucretius,  the  mourner  (if  he  cared  to  answer)  might 
reply  by  asking  whether,  even  assuming  the  Epicurean 
doctrine  of  extinction  at  death,  the  childless  father  is  so 
much  better  off?  Is  a  blank  and  empty  life  here  better 
because  there  is  no  other  ? 

Aeternumque 
nulla  dies  nobis  maerorem  e  pectore  demet. 

Lucretius  may  have  shown  that  all  is  well  for  the  dead, 
but  has  he  helped  the  living  ?  Will  the  "  eternal  sorrow 
in  his  heart "  really  yield  to  such  arguments  ?  Is  it  quite 
certain,  too,  that  the  dead  have  no  longer  any  love  or 
longing  for  the»living?  The  philosopher  may  argue  as  he 
likes,  but  the  lover  will  never  believe  it.  Virgil's  Anchises 
is  a  figure  of  legend,  but  is  there  no  meaning  for  real  people 
in  his  words  beyond  the  grave  ? 

Venisti  tandem,  tuaque  expectata  parent! 

vicit  iter  durum  pietas  ?  datur  era  tueri 

nate  tua  et  notas  audire  et  reddere  voces  ^  (A.  vi.  687). 

To  the  Stoic  Virgil's  mourner  might  reply  with  Euripides' 
Andromache  that  the  happiness  of  the  days  when  he  had  no 
son  was  poor  compared  with  what  he  has  since  known ;  he 
has  enlarged  his  experience  ;  love  has  made  him  another  and 
a  larger  man,  and  he  cannot  unlearn  or  go  back — would 
not  even  if  he  could.  The  poet  is  all  on  the  side  of 
largeness  of  sympathy,  not  merely  in  theory,  like  the 
Stoics,  but  in  fact  and  life.  He  does  not  wish  to  escape 
the  risks  of  sorrow  to  which  love  exposes  him.  The  price  is 
too  high  for  one  thing.  But  he  looks  more  earnestly  at  the 
matter,  and  he  finds  that  the  evils  which  the  Stoic  sought 
to  avoid  are  at  once  far  more  painful  than  the  man  of 
deadened  sensibility  supposes,  and   far  too  valuable  to  be 

^        "  Here  thou  comest  at  last,  and  the  love  I  counted  upon 

Over  the  rugged  path  has  prevailed.     Once  more,  O  my  son, 
I  may  behold  thee,  and  answer  with  mine  thy  voice  as  of  yore." 

(Bowen). 


328  VIRGIL 

called  evil.  For  the  very  uncertainties  of  life,  and  the 
perils  to  which  love  is  subjected,  make  love  more  intense 
and  more  conscious.  To  share  a  danger  deepens  friend- 
ship— 

O  socii,  neque  enim  ignari  sumus  ante  malorum  ^ 

{A.  i.  198). 

Does  it  mean  less  to  love  ?  We  have  an  illustration 
in  the  description  of  Allecto  blowing  the  trumpet 
{A.  vii.    511). 

Standing  on  a  watch-tower,  the  Fury  sounds  the  war- 
note,  putting  into  it  the  full  capacity  of  her  voice  of 
hell— 

Tartaream  intendit  vocem. 

It  is  a  picture  of  mere  irrational  and  devilish  malevolence — 
pure  evil,  if  it  is  to  be  found  anywhere.  The  forests  trembled 
at  the  sound,  it  flew  by  lake  and  stream, 

et  trepidae  matres  pressere  ad  pectora  natos  {A.  vii,  518). 

Allecto  does  her  worst,  and  the  effect  is  to  make  the  mother 
press  her  child  to  her  breast — the  Fury  has  quickened 
maternal  love  into  new  consciousness.  She  is  a  symbol  of 
evil  opening  our  eyes  to  good ;  the  evil  vanishes,  but  the 
good,  once  seen,  remains  ours. 

Virgil  shows  us  the  effect  of  pain  and  sorrow  upon 
character  in  the  deepening  and  broadening  of  love.  As 
toil  and  want  gave  mankind  the  joy  of  action,  the  know- 
ledge of  earth  and  sea  and  sky,  and  the  great  sense  of 
achievement,  so  pain  and  sorrow  open  the  eyes  of  men 
to  the  human  world  around  them,  and  bring  men  into 
sympathy  with  one  another.  In  short,  they  teach  men 
"humanity,"  and  if  we  give  the  word  all  the  fine  sug- 
gestion of  its  etymology,  we  shall  feel  with  the  poet  that 
the  lesson  is  too  great  and  too  valuable  to  allow  us  to 
call  our  teachers  evil. 

If  proof  is    needed   that  Virgil  has  some  such  thought, 

^  "  Comrades,  for  we  are  not  unacquainted  with  misfortune  ere  this." 


RESULTS  329 

Dido's    utterance    may    be    cited     as     its     most    succinct 
expression — 

Non  ignara  mali  miseris  succurrere  disco  ^  (A.  i.  630). 


But  great  poets  seldom  entrust  their  deepest  mind  to  solitary 
lines.  If  this  is  Virgil's  mind,  we  shall  find  it  pervading 
his  whole  poem  ;  and  we  do  find,  in  fact,  that  it  is  his  way  to 
draw  characters  who  have  been  "  humanized  "  by  "  deep 
distress "  ^ — Dido,  Evander,  Andromache,  and  the  kindly 
Tityrus,  for  instance,  and,  most  of  all,  the  central  figure 
of  the  poem.  If  we  have  been  right  in  our  study  of  Aeneas, 
the  key-note  to  his  character,  as  conceived  by  Virgil,  is  the 
full  and  strong  humanity  that  results  from  long  but  victorious 
knowledge  of  pain  and  sorrow — "  our  human  nature's  highest 
dower."  It  had  been  Virgil's  own  experience  from  the  days 
of  the  plantatioif  of  the  veterans. 

To  the  mourner  by  the  pyre,  then,  if  Virgil  had  said 
anything  at  all — poets  have  their  own  times  and  ways  of 
speaking — he  might  have  said — or,  more  probably,  he 
would  himself  have  felt — that  capacity  for  sorrow  is  a 
measure  of  love,  that  love  is  often  best  learnt  in  sorrow, 
and  that  there  is  nothing  for  man  better  worth  learning 
at  whatever  cost.  And  he  would  have  felt  the  gap  in 
fwhat  he  said. 

But  life  is  not  all  battle  and  bereavement,  and  one  of 
Virgil's  great  achievements  is  to  open  up  for  us  many 
avenues  to  delight.  What  pleasure  he  has  found  in  books, 
in  "  the  strong-winged  music  of  Homer  " — and  also  in  the 
studied  rhythms  of  Alexandria !  Who  can  have  an  utterly 
miserable  life  who  has  a  beehive  to  study,  or  can  watch 
earth  and  sky  and  sea,  all  filled  with  delightful  living 
things,  manifestations,  each  and  all,  of  divinity  ? 

A  poet  could  not  but  be  gay 
In  such  a  jocund  company. 

^"Myself  no  stranger  to  sorrow.  I  am  learning  to  succour  the  unhappy" 
(Conington). 

'Wordsworth,  Elegiac  Stanzas  (1805)  "A  deep  distress  hath  humanized 
my  Soui," 


330  VIRGIL 

Even  the  wicked  old  Cilician  pirate  settles  down  to  a  sober 
and  happy  life  in  a  garden  of  his  own  contriving  on  a  strip 
of  waste  Italian  land.^  If  Virgil  is  melancholy,  it  is  with 
constant  gleams  of  happiness.  Few  poets  of  antiquity  have 
found  so  much  to:enjoy  in  man's  life  and  environment,  and 
perhaps  it  was  the  melancholy  that  opened  his  eyes  to  see  it 
all — once  more  the  soul  of  goodness  in  things  evil. 

V 

It  comes  out  clearly  in  the  study  of  his  poetry  that  Virgil 
has  felt,  with  the  rest  of  mankind, 

The  heavy  and  the  weary  weight 
Of  all  this  unintelligible  world, 

and  also  that  he  has  known  the  mood  in  which  it  is 
lightened.  He  does  not  leave  the  reader  long  in  doubt  as  to 
the  burden  of  thought  that  comes  upon  us  when  we  look  on 
man  with  sympathy,  nor  as  to  the  reflections  which  tend  to 
make  it  tolerable.  He  has  not  done  as  Robinson  Crusoe 
suggests,  because  he  has  found  that  good  and  evil,  as  men 
call  them,  will  not  be  separated  in  thought  any  more  than 
in  experience.  He  has  not  refused  to  recognize  the  existence 
of  evil  ;  but  he  tries  to  bereave  it  of  its  bad  influence,  hold- 
ing that  this  can  be  done  by  looking  it  well  in  the  face. 

To  say  that  he  gives  us  a  full  presentment  of  every  aspect 
of  the  problem  of  mankind  would  of  course  be  absurd.  Does 
he,  for  example,  realize  the  power  of  evil  passion  ?  The 
animae  candidiores  seldom  understand  it,  and  it  was 
reserved  perhaps  for  a  later  age  to  feel  with  Augustine  the 
force  of  sin.  It  is  clear,  too,  that  Virgil  is  himself  conscious 
of  having  something  still  to  gain,  for  the  melancholy  which 
haunts  him  is  not  wholly  vanquished  by  his  philosophy  and 
his  pleasure  in  the  world.     Where  lies  its  strength  ? 

When  we  consider  the  age  in  which  he  lived,  it  is  not 
hard  to  account  for  the  depression  of  a  man  so  human  and 
so  tender  as  Virgil. 

For  a  century,  or  near  it,  right  and  wrong  had  been  con- 
founded,  the   world  full    of  war  and  every  kind  of  crime ; 

^  G.  iv.  125-46. 


RESULTS  331 

the  ploughman  had  been  marched  away  to  become  a 
soldier  ;  East  and  West  it  had  been  the  same,  everywhere 
the  fury  of  murder  and  destruction,  and  the  paralysis  of 
man's  better  faculties. ^  The  wonder  is  that  with  such  a 
consciousness  of  human  misery  Virgil  could  write  a  poem  of 
such  enduring  happiness  as  the  Georgics. 

The  mischief  resulting  to  the  world  from  a  century  of 
civil  war  was  not  to  be  mended  in  a  decade,  nor  was  the 
grim  experience  of  forty  years  to  be  obliterated  from  such  a 
mind  as  the  poet's.  But  there  is  no  pessimism  about  him. 
Like  his  hero,  he  never  surrenders,  though  it  is  with  a 
terrible  sense  of  effort  that  hero  and  poet  keep  facing  for 
Latium,  particularly  when  with  time  it  seems  to  come  no 
nearer. 

It  is  but  to  keep  the  nerves  at  strain, 
To  dry  one's  eyes  and  laugh  at  a  fall, 
Anfl  baffled,  get  up  and  begin  again,^ 

but  eventually  the"  getting  up  and  beginning  again  "  becomes 
acutely  painful,  for  the  new  hopes  needed  are  slow  to  frame 
themselves,  and  the  doubt  recurs  more  and  more  often 
whether  the  struggle  is  really  leading  to  anything.  The  world 
offered  Virgil  nothing  by  which  this  doubt  might  be  finally 
killed.  Apart  from  the  Jews,  there  was  no  nation  in  the 
Mediterranean  world  which  consciously  hoped.  Amid  all 
this  depression  who  will  wonder  that  Virgil  knew  melancholy  ? 
And  yet  his  is  the  great  voice  of  hope,  reality  and  gladness 
in  the  Roman  world. 

Virgil,  again,  as  we  have  seen,  felt  the  mystery  of  death. 
Ancient  religion  did  not  look  much  beyond  the  grave.  As 
for  contemporary  philosophy,  we  know  what  Lucretius  said, 
and  the  best  the  Stoics  could  say  was  "  Disembark  ;  if  for 
another  life,  nothing  is  without  the  gods,  even  there."  ^ 
Neither  could  satisfy  one  to  whom  love  meant  so  much. 
Love  being  the  one  thing  in  the  world  that  refuses  to  accept 

1  G.  i.  505. 

*  Cf.  Marcus  Aurelius,  5.  9  )i.y\^h  diravdav  .  .  .  dWd  eKKpovadivTa  irdXiv 
iir(xi>Uvai. 

'  Marcus  Aurelius,  3.  3  tI  ravra  ;  ivl^-i}%,  HnXivaai,  Kar-^x^V^'  ^Kjjrjdt.  El  niv 
e<p'  irepov  §'iov,  oiiMv  OfUf  Kffov,  oyS^  e/cei. 


332  VmGIL 

the  fact  of  death,  the  poet  in  Virgil  cannot  accept  it,  but  the 
philosopher  in  him  cannot  yet  see  how  to  escape  it.  Mean- 
while, as  we  have  seen,  whatever  the  outcome,  Virgil  stands 
with  the  lovers  for  the  larger  life.^ 

Most  of  us  will  probably  allow  that  if  Virgil  has  not  solved 
the  problem  of  the  universe  he  has  felt  it  with  some  fulness. 

"  La  venue  meme  du  Christ  n'a  rien  qui  etonne  quand  on 
a  lu  Virgile,"  says  Sainte-Beuve.^  The  early  history  of  the 
Church  illustrates  the  truth  of  this  conclusion.  To  minds 
touched  with  the  same  sense  of  life's  problems  which  pervades 
the  poetry  of  Virgil,  the  Gospel  brought  the  rest  and  peace 
which  they  could  not  find  elsewhere.  The  early  Church 
was  quick  to  recognize  a  friend  and  a  forerunner  in  Virgil. 
If  to-day  we  discard  the  interpretations  which  the  early 
Christians  put  upon  the  fourth  Eclogue,  we  can  share  their 
deeper  feeling  for  Maro  vates  Gentiliuin? 

An  unknown  student  of  the  poet  has  embodied  in  a  stanza 
of  a  Mass  of  St  Paul  a  fine  appreciation  of  the  worth  and 
significance  of  Virgil's  poetry  and  of  the  one  thing  which  the 
new  view  of  life  could  have  added  to  it.  He  pictures  St  Paul 
pausing  on  his  journey  to  Rome  to  visit  the  mausoleum  of 
Virgil  at  Naples. 

Ad  Maronis  mausoleum 

Ductus  fudit  super  eum 

Piae  rorem  lacrimae ; 

^  A  very  remarkable  letter  of  Mazzini  to  Mrs  Carlyle  on  this  subject  (date  of  15 
July  1846)  will  be  found  in  Froude's  Carlyle  s  Life  in  London  i.  p.  413. 

^  Ehide  sitr  Virgile,  p.  68.  This  phrase  was  criticized  in  The  Spectator  as  "  a 
silly  and  audacious  epigram,  which  .  .  .  will  hardly  be  accepted  by  real  students 
of  Virgil  and  of  the  Gospels."  After  an  interval  of  years  I  still  deliberately 
accept  it.  The  critic,  I  may  mention,  gave  his  own  point  of  view  by  adding : 
"  To  study  the  philosophical  or  religious  views  of  some  great  poet  is  an  amusement 
which  is  now  very  fashionable."  I  am  glad  to  find  that  Mr  Warde  Fowler 
(Religious  Experience  of  the  Roman  People,  p.  404)  compares  the  phrase  of  Sainte- 
Beuve  with  the  more  cautiously  worded  judgement  of  Sellar,  Virgil,  p.  371,  and 
gives  his  verdict  that  "  the  feeling  that  underlies  both  utterances  is  a  true  one." 
I  think  that  any  one  who  has  tried  in  earnest  to  grapple  with  a  great  poet  of 
antiquity  will  not  call  it  an  amusement,  but  a  discipline,  and  will  be  glad  to  have 
submitted  his  mind  to  such  a  teacher  in  such  an  intimacy. 

^  'E7rai5a7a>76t  -yo-p  koX  t]  ^iKocro<pia  t6  "EWtjvikov  us  6  vbixo%  roiis  "E^paiovs  els 
Xpicrrdv,  wrote  Clement  of  Alexandria  (Strom,  i.  28).  If  Greeks  had  read  Latin 
poetry,  so  catholic  a  mind  could  have  said  as  much  for  Virgil. 


eat 


RESULTS  333 

Quern  te,  inquit,  reddidissem, 
Si  te  vivum  invenissem, 
Poetarum  maxime.^ 


"Virgil's  tomb  the  saint  stood  viewing, 
And  his  aged  cheek  bedewing, 
SS,   I  Fell  the  sympathetic  tear  ; 

Qj  I  '  Ah  !  had  I  but  found  thee  living, 

,1    I  What  new  music  wert  thou  giving, 

I  Best  of  poets  and  most  dear  ! '  " 

"'i     Cited  by  Comparetti,   Vergil  in  the  Middle  Ages^  pt.  i.  ch.  7,  p.  98.     The  use  of 
icj     Virgil's  peculiar  adjective  should  be  noted. 

ice 


INDEX 


Achilles — 

among  the  dead,  240,  314. 
contrast  with  Aeneas,  209-213, 

294. 
fight  with  Aeneas,  86-92. 
Aeneas,  chs.  iv,  ix. 

i.  Mythology  and  Literature — 
myths  of,  ch.  iv,  85-104. 
origin  of  his  connexion  with 

Aphrodite,  96,  97. 
origin  of  his  name,  96. 
fight  with  Athilles,  86-92. 
his  wanderings,  92-99. 
founder  of  towns,  90,  95,  228. 
his  temples  to  Aphrodite,  95- 

97- 
his  tombs,  95. 
in  Iliad,  86-92. 
in  Latin  literature,  102. 
ii.    VirgiPs       presentment      of 

Aeneas — 
as  ideal  hero,  212,  226,  230- 

232. 
character  of  Aeneas,  ch.  ix, 

321,  322,  329. 
character  of  Aeneas  in  epi- 
sode of  Dido,  203-207. 
contrast  with  Achilles,  209- 

213,  294. 
pietas,  89,  222-226. 
feeling  on  war,  228,  313. 
quest  of  Italy,  193-196. 
the  strenuous  life,  264. 
self-repression,  210. 
relations  with  gods,  209,  211, 

216-222,  304. 
character  of  his  allies,  123. 
how     far     modelled     after 

Augustus,  28,  166-169. 
as  prince,  226-230. 
as  Homeric  hero,   213-216. 


Aeneas — continued. 

compared  with   The  Happy 
Warrior,  230-232. 
iii.  Episode  of  Dido.    See  ch. 
viii. 

height   and    appearance    of 
Aeneas,  183. 

beautified    by   Venus,   criti- 
cism of  this,  214,  215. 

prepares  to  leave  Carthage, 

195  f- 
sails  trom  Carthage,  198. 
Aeneid,  39,  83,  84,  104,  156. 
gesta  populi  Romani,  83. 
its  place  in  Europe,  46,  47. 
Aeolus,  138. 
Aeschylus,  236,  281. 
After-Ufe.     See  Hades. 
Albula,  131. 

Alexandrine    literature,     19,    ^7,, 
55-58,  106,  1^7-179,  285. 
influence  of  painting,  58,  73-76. 
Allecto,  328. 
Ancestors,  92,  102-103. 
Anchises  and  Aeneas,  87,  93,  194, 
266-270,  327. 
and  Aphrodite,  97. 
Anna  (sister  of  Dido),  172,  187- 

i9o>.  i93>  197.  198'  201. 
Antiquarianism,  76-79. 
Antiquities,  76-78,  95,  loi. 
Antony,  137,  146,  154,  165,  166, 

322. 
Ants,  37. 
Aphrodite,     56-57,     95-99.       See 

Venus. 
Apollo  in  Italy,  296. 
Apollonius     of    Rhodes,    55-58, 

146,  176,  285,  286. 
Archaelogy  and  primitive  religion, 

235- 

336 


u^ 


VIRGIL 


Aristophanes,  105,  106,  243,  248, 

282,  302. 
Aristophon,  247. 
Aristotle,  227,  243,  281. 

Poetics,  68,  79,  81,  202,  214. 

Ethics,  150. 
Arnold  (M.),  47,  51,  218. 
Art  and  Nature,  68. 
Ascanius.     See  lulus. 
Athenaeum,  222. 
Augustan  age,  2,  3,  143. 
Augustine  (St),  18,  76,  172,  201, 

287,  330. 
Augustus,  ch.  vii ;   3,  9,  24,   26- 
29,  39,  82. 

age  of,  3. 

apotheosis,  147,  167-171. 

attitude  to  ideas  of  Julius,  147, 

153- 
attitude  to  Republic,  9,  168. 
as     subject     for     poetry,    79, 

147. 
panegyrical  epic,  81,  165-168. 
references  in  Aeneid,  163-171. 
compared  with  Aeneas,  166. 
friendship  with  Virgil,  39,  81, 

155  f- 
peace,  158,  162,  168. 
rehgion,  159-160,  255. 
his  character,  147,  161. 
his  court,  29. 
his  work,  150-4,  159,  164,  170, 

171. 
Ausonius,  112. 


Beautification  of  Aeneas,  214- 

216. 
Bees,  14,  34,  37- 
^laioMvaroi,  262,  263. 
Birds,  15,  118-119,  257,  260, 
Boswell  (J.),  64. 
Browning,     30,     129,    202,    209, 

3^3^  325.  331- 
Browning     and     Wordsworth, 

166. 

Buddhism,  244. 

Burns,  15,  33. 


Caesar  (C.  Julius),  23,  103,  147- 
.  153.  203,  229. 

his  mind,  150,  151. 
Caird  (E.),  9,  267,  303. 
Calendar,  35,  150. 
Callimachus,  72,  75. 
Carlyle,  2,  3,  7,  22,   36,  41,  85, 
151,  161,  176,  254,  307,  314. 
Carthage — 

war  with  Rome,  174,  175,  199. 

destruction  of,  130. 
Catalepton,  18-21,  222. 
Catiline,  23,  265. 
Catullus,  17,  21,  58,  65,  169,  179, 
188,  203. 

Ariadne,  74,  177,  179. 
Celts,  13. 

Character,  319-329. 
Chronologists,  loi,  102,  104. 
Cicero  (M.),  21,   157,   166,   289- 
291. 

dream  of  Scipio,  170,  253,  254. 
City- 
charm  of  a,  129-130. 

destruction  of  a,  130,  313. 
City  of  Zeus,  302-304,  319. 
Claudian,     75,     144,    145,     274, 

325- 
Cleanthes,  217. 
Clement  of  Alexandria,  244,  251, 

332. 
Cleopatra,  146,  185. 
Clough,  273,  306. 
Corfinium,  107. 
Courier  (P.  L.),  49. 
Cowper,   15,   19,  26,  29,  37,  46, 

117,  227. 
Cukx,  17,  18. 


Daemons,  170. 

Dead.     See  Hades, 
burial  of,  312,  313. 
cult  of,  236. 

Deification,  169,  170. 

Dido- 
popularity  of  Virgil's  Dido,  54, 
172. 


INDEX 


337 


D  ido — continued. 

is  she  equivalent  to  Aphrodite  ? 

97,  173-  . 

in  early  Latin  poetry,  173. 

character,  182-186,  191,  194. 

love  of  children,  184. 

passion  for  Aeneas,  186-202. 

her  dreams,  187,  198. 

passionate   nature,    185,    187, 
196. 

abandons  her  ideals,  190,  192. 

religion,  190,  191. 

her  capture  of  Aeneas,  192. 

her  desertion,  194,  f. 

her  madness,  197-201. 

suicide,  199-202. 

significance  of  her  story,  202- 
207. 
Diodorus  Siculus,  7,  255. 
Dionysius  of  Halicarnassus,  92- 

100,  134,  287. 
Dionysus  Zagreus,  244. 
Dis  aliter  visum,  309  f. 
Divination,  236,  266,  271. 
Dogmata,  8. 
Drances,  163,  166,  230. 


ECCLESIASTES,  3 1 4. 

Eclecticism,  8. 

Eclogues,  25-28,  31,  II,  128,  169, 

178,  292,  322. 
Elysium,  241,  251,  265,  267-270, 

324- 
Emerson,  35,  67. 
Empire  (imperial  system),  9,  150- 

154- 
Ennius,  53,  59,  60,  71,  173,  198, 

253.  l^l- 
Epictetus,    144,    292,    298,   316, 

317,318. 
Epicurus  and  Epicureanism,  21, 

37j   38,   197,   251-253.     See 

Lucretius. 
Erinnyes,  241. 
Eryx,  98. 

Etruscans,  13,  252. 
Euphorion,  69. 


Euripides,   6,  53,   54,   106,  176, 
202,  203. 

and  gods,  281-283. 

popularity  with  Romans,  53. 

and  Virgil,  53-55. 

Andromache,  318. 

Bacchae,  53. 

Hecuba,  53. 

Hippolytus,  53,    177,    179-181, 
189,  199. 

Ion,  282. 

Medea,^  53,  199. 

Phoenissae,  252. 

Troades,  53-55,  281. 
Eurydice,  38,  179,  255. 
Evander,  121-123,  132-134,  310. 


Farm-life,  etc.    See  Georgics.  12, 

14.  15,  34-36,  319- 
Fate,  141-142,  217-219,  300-301. 
Fire-walking,  296. 
Fox  (C.  J.),  188,  208. 
Fowler  (W.  Warde),  38,  77,  131, 

146,  173,  222,287,  296,  332. 


Gallus,  18,  25,  48,  177,  256. 
Gaul,  Transpadane,  5,  23,  107. 

Caesar  in  Gaul,  151. 
Gellius  (A.),  288,  295,  301. 
Genius,  269. 
Georgics,  2,Z-Z9^  75,  169,  255-257, 

292-293,  319,  322. 
Girard,  192,  218,  276-278. 
Gods,  ch.  ix,  §  3,  ch.  xi. 

in  Homer,  275-280,  283,  284, 

293-295,  314-  . 
a  crude  monotheism  in  Homer, 

278. 
turned  into  men  by  Homer,  97. 
traditional  in  epic,  273,  274. 
in   Argonautica,   56,    57,    285, 

286. 
in  Georgics,  292-293. 
in   Aeneid,    180-182,    216-221, 

293-300,  314- 
omitted  by  Lucan,  273. 


138 


VIRGIL 


Gods — continued, 

Italian   gods,    252,    287,    288, 

290-291,  295-299,  304. 
Penates    brought    to    Italy  by 

Aeneas,  123-124,  296. 
evolution    of    gods,    216-222, 

275-279,  283-285. 
fate   and   the    gods,    217-220, 

300-301. 
personal    relations   with   men, 

220-222,  304. 
prayer,  286. 
Goethe,  41,  66,    147,   213,  302, 

306,  322. 
"  Golden  Age,"  322. 
Greeks — 

their  divisions,  105-106. 
Greek  individuality,  138. 
Greek  genius,  235. 


Hades  and  after-life,  ch.  x — 
Homer's  picture  of  it,  236-241. 
isles  of  the  blest,  240-241. 
Achilles  on  Hades,  240,  314. 
development  in  ideas  of  Hades, 

240-241. 
influence  of  Orphism  and  mys- 
teries, 242-243. 
descents  into  Hades  : 

Odysseus,  236-240. 

Wainamoinen,  237-238. 

Orpheus,  247. 

Pythagoras,  247. 

Dionysus,  247  {in  Ar.  Raji., 
248). 

Aeneas,  258-271. 
in  literature,  255-256. 
rewards  and  punishments : 

none  in  Homer,  241. 

dependent  on  initiation,  242, 
248,  249,  266. 

dependent  oncharacter,  245, 
250. 
Plato's  ideas  of  Hades,  249-2  5 1 . 
criticism  of  Hades  by  Epicurus 

and  school,  251. 
Epicurus  in  hell,  251. 


Hades  and  after-life — continued. 
Etruscan  ideas,  252. 
Cicero  and  after-life,  253-254. 
as  deterrent,  255. 
in  Georgics,  255-257. 
Aeneid  v'\,  258-271. 
limbo,  262. 
survival  of  personality,  252-253, 

272,  327. 
transmigration  of  souls.      See 
Re-birth. 
Heine  (H.),  66,  280. 
Herakles  and  Hercules,  133-134, 
148,  170,  238,  291,  298-299, 
310. 
Hero,  ideal,  ch.  viii. 
Herodotus,  278. 
Hesiod,  76,  91,  97,  241,  276. 
History — 

philosophy  of,  7,  126-128. 
and  poetry,  79,  80. 
Homer,  46-52,  59,  69,  81,  97, 105, 
1 16,  140,  236-241. 
Odyssey,  72,  215,  226,  227,236- 

240. 
Iliad,  86-92,  137. 
vixuia  236-241,  263. 
and  Plato,  212,  283-284. 
Homeric  heroes,  209-215. 
Homeric    gods,    275-80,    283, 

284,  293-295,  314. 
compared    with  Virgil,    41-43, 
46-51. 
Homeric  hymns,  91,  93,  97,  242, 

297. 
Horace,  2,  12,  29,  31,  32,  67,  81, 
103,  108,  III,  147,  148,  160, 
256,  257,  261. 
Humanity — 
study  of,  5,  6. 
progress,  7. 


Iapis,  24-25. 
Imitation,  45-46,  69-70. 
lopas,  61,  195. 
Italians,  10,  112,  120-123. 
character,  36,  121-123,  125. 


INDEX 


339 


taly— 
scenery,   i6,  111-114,  116-117, 

129. 
fauna,  11 7- 11 9. 
legends,  114,  115. 
towns  founded  by  Greeks  and 

Trojans,  100-102. 
what  Trojans  did  for  Italy,  123- 

125 
early  history,  1 21-123. 
gods  of  Italy,  etc.,  252,  287, 

288,  290,  295-296. 
Virgil   poet    of    Italian    unity, 

105-108. 
lulus  (and  Ascanius),  90,  98,  103, 

224-225.  , 


Janus,  135-136,  158,  295. 
Jews,  10,  331. 

Juno,  139,  141-142,  180-181,  294. 
Jupiter  (and  Zeus),  132,  139,  193- 

194,  276,  278,  279,  285-286, 

294-298,  300-303. 
Juturna,  294. 
Juvenal,  129,  190,  208. 


Kalevala,  237,  238. 
King  Lear,  179,  308. 


Labour,  Virgil  on,  34-37.  13°. 

319*  320. 
Lamb  (C),  325. 
Latin  literature,  58,  70-71. 

influence   of  Greek   literature, 
68-70. 
Latinus,  134,  229. 
Lausus,  223,  313,  326. 
*'  Lazaretto-poetry,"  306. 
Lecky  (\V.  E.  H.),  9,  23,  117,222. 
Livy,  77,  103,  134,  141. 
Lucan,  80,  273-274. 
I      Lucretius,  21,  22,  27,  53,  61-63, 
115,  169,  327. 
and  Virgil,  60-63,  65,  115,  136. 
on  gods,  289-290. 


Lucretius — continued. 

on  after-life,  252-253,  316. 
on  bereavement,  315-317. 


Macaulay  (Lord),  78. 

Macrobius,  41-44,68, 1 16, 1 72-1 73. 

Maecenas,  28,  30-32,  156. 

Magia,  25. 

Magius,  14. 

Manichaeanism,  244. 

Mankind,  progress  of,   5-8,    212- 

213.  320-322. 
Mantua,  13,  17,  23,  119. 
Marcus   Aurelius,    2,    221,     222, 

302-304. 
Marius,  23. 
Martial,  11,  28. 
Mazzini,  332. 
Melissus,  30. 
Metempsychosis,  245,   250,  264, 

267-270. 
Milton,  17,  19,  53,  141. 
Mimas,  310,  311. 
Mincius,  13,  16. 
Misenus,  100,  114,  299. 
Monarchy,  156,  157. 
Morality  of  sexes,  203-207. 
More  turn,  18,  19. 
Morris  (William),  52. 
Mosella,  112. 
Mysteries,  242-249,  284. 

slight  connexion  with  morality, 

243,  249. 
Mythology,  71-76,  255. 


Naevius,  173. 

Napoleon  on  Virgil  and  Homer,  49. 
Nation  in  poetry,  new,  105. 
Nature,  6,  14-17,  27,  36-37,   109- 

III,  117-119,  308. 
personified  by  Lucretius,  315- 

316. 
Neil(R.  A.),  211. 
Neo-Platonists,  234,  264, 278, 301 . 
Nonnus,  276. 
Novalis,  8,  281. 


340 


VIRGIL 


OcTAViAN.     Se£  Augustus. 
Olympus,  ch.  xi.    See  Gods. 
Omar,  103. 

Orpheus  (music),  255-256. 
Orphism.etc, 60, 243-247, 2  65-266. 

Orphic  tablets,  245-246. 

Plato  and  Orphism,  249-250. 
Ovid  32,  5S,  73-74,   77-78,  172, 

177. 


Painting,  58,  74. 

Pais  (Ettore),  loi. 

Palinurus,  51,  114,  178,261,262. 

Pallas  (son  of  Evander),  298,  310. 

Parthenius,  18,  19,  177. 

Parthians,  136. 

Passover,  244. 

Patin,  22,  58,  59,  65,  68,  126,  179. 

Penates,  123-124,  296. 

Petronius,  274. 

Philodemus  of  Gadara,  5. 

Philosophy,    progress     in     later 

Greece,  6. 
Piefas,  89,  222-226. 
Pindar,  24S,  281,  282,  313. 
Pisander,  43-44. 
Plato,  309. 

criticism  of  Homer,  212,  283- 
2S4,  310. 

on  mysteries,  24S-249. 

doctrine  of  future  life,  249-251, 
263,  267,  269,  271. 

and  the  gods,  283,  2S5,  29S. 

and  righteousness,  324. 
Pliny  (elder),  131,  318. 
Pliny  (younger),  18,  119. 
Plotia  Hieria,  204. 
Plutarch,  141,  2S6,  2S9,  31S,  323. 

and  Shakespeare,  44,  45. 
Poetry,  i,  306  f. 

borrowing  and  imitation,  44-46. 

expressing  the  universal.  So. 

and  history,  79,  So. 

"  ancient   quarrel    with    philo- 
sophy," 277,  306,  318. 
Pollio,  25. 
Polybius,  5,  7,  57,  255,  288. 


Prince,  226-230. 

Propertius,32,48,52,72-73, 77,132. 
Providence,  219-220. 
Prudentius,  12,  145,  265. 
Fudor,  190. 

Punic  wars,  174  f.,  199-200. 
Pythagoras  and  his  school,  243- 
244,  245,  247,  292. 


QuiNTUS  of  Smyrna,  46,  49,  91, 
212. 


Re-birth,  245,250,  264,  267-270. 
Remulus  Numanus,  121-122,126, 

229. 
Republic  and   republican   senti- 
ment, 9-10. 

Caesar's  criticism,  153. 

Virgil's  feeling,  162-163. 
Rewards  and  punishments,  324- 

326. 
Rivers,  16,  117,  130-131. 
jRolunson  Crusoe,  227,  307-308. 
Rochefort  (H.),  150. 
Rohde  (E.),  237,  270. 
Roman  character,  4,  10,  11,83-84, 
13S-143,  321. 

want  of  "  physiognomy,"  140. 

usage  and  ritual,  133-136. 

people  (populus),  142. 

heroes,  136-13S. 
Romanticism,  290. 
Rome — 

significance  of,  126-128. 

continuity  of  her  history,   125, 

133-  . 

foundation  of,  85,  100-2. 
expansion  into  Italy,  107. 
Trojan  legend,  loo-ioi. 
stories  from  her  history,  137. 
national  life  of,  9,  10. 
reliance  on  gods,  219-220. 
character  of  her  rule,  142-146. 
decline  of  repubhc,  11,  150. 
the  city,  128-132. 
its  streets,  129. 


INDEX 


341 


Rom  e — continued. 

its  famous  sights,  132. 
Rumon,  131. 
Rumour,  192. 


Sainte-Beuve,     12,     138,     146, 
166,  225,  226-227,  232,  311, 

332. 
Sarpedon,  47,  218,  278-279,  298. 
Saturnalia,  41-44. 
Scenery,  interest  in,  108-115. 
Scott  (Sir  Walter),  29,  32,  108. 
Seneca,  43,  233,  254,  309,  317, 

325.  326. 
Servius,  36,  41,  93,  173,  233-234, 
256,  258,*26i,  262,  269,  271, 
293.  295.  296,  300,  301,  311, 

Servius  Sulpicius,  39. 
Shakespeare,  44-45,  140,  161, 179, 

308. 
Silenus,  27,  60,  297. 
Silius  Italicus,  80,  274, 
Siro,  18,  19,  20,  21,  24. 
Sophocles,  52,  93,  127,  187,  281. 
Soracte,  fire-walking  on,  296. 
Sors  Vergiliana,  200. 
Spectator,  332. 
Spenser  (E.),  120,  121,  278. 
Stapfer,  44. 

Starry  sky,  290,  312-313. 
State,  service  of,  10,  11,  161,  170, 

228,  250,  254. 
Stawell  (F.  M.),  237,  238. 
Stoicism,  221,  291,  292,  302-304, 

317-319,  323,  327. 
Strabo,  15,  90,  129,  253. 
Suetonius,  11,  14,  25,  30,  35,  39, 

148,  156,  157,  159. 
Sulla,  23,  157,  161. 
Superstition,  249,  288,  289. 
Synesius,  9,  243,  261. 


Tacitus,  9,  300-301. 
Tennyson,  16,  64,  225. 
Tertullian  quoted,  56,  179. 


Theocritus,  26,  109,  177,  311. 
Thomas  of  Celano,  257. 
Thucydides,  49,  50. 
Tiber,  130-132,  295. 
Tibullus,  13,  J03,  290. 
Tityrus,  27,  148,  169,  329. 
Toga,  142. 

Tragedy,  53-55,  175,  187. 
Travel,  no,  m. 
Trees,  14,  15,  16,  36. 
Trojans  in  Italy,  123-125. 
Tucca,  39. 

Turnus,  229,  230,  294,  298. 
Twelve  tables,  11,  264. 


Urbanitas,  227. 


Varius,  30,39,40,79,81,204,270. 
Varro,  20,  76,  103,  115,  117,  173, 

288,  296. 
Varus,  25. 
Velleius    Paterculus   and    Virgil, 

174. 
Venus.    See  Aphrodite.    181-182, 

214-215,  295,  297. 
Vergiliomastix,  39. 
Virgil. 

i.  Personal  History — 

his  native  land,  5,  9. 

his  father,  14,  24,  25. 

birth,  II. 

home  life,  11- 15. 

boyhood,  17. 

training  and  education,  12, 
18-22.  6*^^  Parthenius  and 
Siro. 

learning,  233-234. 

the  bar,  22. 

episode  of  the  farm,  23-26, 

155- 
at  Rome,  26,  28-32. 
relations  with  Augustus,  ch. 

vii,  29,  39,  40,  81-84,  149, 

154-163. 
method  of  composition,  52, 

205. 


342 


VIRGIL 


Vi  rgil — continued. 

read  his  poetry,  32,  156. 
letter  to  Augustus,  156. 
sayings,  51,59,  60,205,  214. 
voice,  32. 

feature  and  manners,  28. 
popularity,  31,  39. 
at  Naples,  32,  39. 
journey  to  East,  39. 
death,  39. 
ii.  Relations  to  other  authors  {not 

contemporaries).     See  also 

under  their  own  names — 
Alexandrines,  19,  20,  55-58, 

74-76. 
Catullus,  17,  64-65. 
Ennius,  59-60. 
Euripides,  53-55. 
Homer,  41-43,  46-5 1, 59, 214. 
Lucretius,    21,    22,    27,    38, 

60-63,  65,  115,   136,  291, 

315-319.  327- 
Sophocles,  52. 
iii.  National  Life — 

first  to  treat  of  "  nation  "  in 

poetry,  105. 
national  feeling,  83,  84,  105 

f.,  111-119. 
pontics,  23,  157-163. 
notademocrat,  158,162-163. 
city-life,  129,  130. 
See  also  : 
Italy,  ch.  V. 
Rome,  ch.  vi. 
iv.  VirgiPs  Character  and  Tastes — 
mind  very  open  to  impression, 

63,  160,  177-178,259,321. 
sensibility,  26,  27. 
humour,  14,  26-27,  37- 
feeling  for  character,  160-161, 

321-322. 
love  of  peace,  145,  158,  260, 

322. 
love  of  nature,  14-17,  36-37, 

117-119,  329. 
melancholy,  13,220-221,329- 

332- 


Virgil — continued. 

dislike  of  abnormal,  178. 
antiquities,  78,  132,  134-136, 

259,  295,  304. 
women,  203-205. 
the  sea,  16,  109,  113. 
v.  VirgiPs  Mi?id  and  Philosophy. 

See   also  Plato,  Stoicism, 

Epicurus, 
development  of  his  mind,  27, 

33  f- 

philosophy,  20-21,  34-38,  40, 
57,123,  221-222,  234,  258- 
259,261,264,269,271-272, 
274-275.292-293,  297-305, 
316-319,  324  f. 

seeks  truth  in  reconciliation, 

27.  51.  305.  323- 
the  gods,  ch.  xi,  esp.  291- 

305- 
fate,  300-301. 
the  question  of  evil,  36,  307- 

309.  328-329. 
history,  127-128. 
religion  of  the  state,  160. 
righteousness,  324-326. 
character,  320-326. 
morality  of  sexes,  203-207. 
treatment  of  passion,  38,  177- 

t79>  317,  3i?>  330- 
judgment  on  Dido,  202-207. 
human   sorrow,  ch.  xii,   28, 

309-314,  327-329. 
no  pessimist,  34,  331. 
suicide,  264,  324. 
the    large    experience,    317- 

319.  327.  332;    SeePietas. 
the  strenuous  mind,  260-261, 

264,  322,  324-325. 
happiness,  25,  34,  35,  32S- 

329,  Zl^- 
the  soul,  267-272. 
presentment  of  Hades,  258- 

272. 
his  conclusions,  323-332. 
vi.   VirgiPs  Works — 
methods,  51,  205. 


l^fll— 


iM«>i»>..»....i»nr,,.,.,v>,wir,T.>w^n-T-ii..it»i»i.ws««..^ 


INDEX 


343 


Virgil — continued. 

early  works,  i8,  19. 

letters,  156. 

battle-scenes,  49-51. 

obscurity,  51,  52. 

language,  51-52,  63. 

failures,  205-207,  211,  295. 
See    also    Aeneid,    Caialepton, 
Eclogues,  Georgics. 
Voltaire,  44,  48,  273. 


Watson  (J.),  277,  278,  284. 


Wordsworth,  22,  58,  62,  109, 
116,  126,  129,  130,  163, 
166,  225,  230,  231,  233, 
293>3i6,  317.323,  329,  330- 


Xenophanes,  244,  280. 
Xenophon,  50,  93. 


Zagreus,  244. 
Zeus.     See  Jupiter. 
Zeus,  city  of,  302-304. 


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